In an imagined reading haven
Everyone has a fantastical place that they want to sit and read in. This is mine...
When you open the door, you are immediately engulfed in books. The long wall of the room is a bookshelf, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and it is full to bursting with books of all kinds, many of which you have not read yet, but bought with the thought that some day, you will get around to reading them.
The room is dim, not dark, but the window doesn't let in too much light. The sound of rain pattering against it is all you can hear, and you watch for a moment as the raindrops race each other down the window pane, pooling at the bottom before they drip to the ground outside.
You flick on the fairy lights and the room is bathed in their soft glow from where they are strung, around the room and above your head, across the ceiling.
The room is cool, but that gives you the perfect opportunity to go to the fireplace, on the wall opposite the bookcases, and kneel down to light a small fire, adding kindling when the sparks turn to flames. The sound of the soft crackling and popping joins the pitter patter of rain, and the warmth immediately jumps to fill the room.
You walk to the bookcase and pluck a book off the shelf, skimming the back cover before putting it back and picking up another. By the time you finally decide on one, the room is pleasantly warm and cosy.
Not too cosy, of course, to sit down in your oversized armchair, sinking into the pillows. You pull a blanket across your lap, and reach for the small table at the side of the armchair, the perfect distance away for placing a cup on. You pick up a cup of steaming hot chocolate, marshmallows melting on top, and take a sip before setting it back down and opening the book to the first page.
The sun starts to set outside, and the light dims even more, the light from the small bulbs around the room aiding you in seeing the words on the page and the fire casting flickering shadows around the room as it starts to die down. You have long since finished your hot chocolate, but the room is too warm and comfortable for you to even think about leaving it. Besides, you have an excuse to stay – you can't leave the fire alone.
You get up, stretching out your limbs, numb from being sat in the same place for so long, and close the curtains, barely muffling the sound of the rain, joined now by the whistling of the wind through the leaves of the trees outside.
You make your way back to your chair and curl up again, picking your book back up and pulling the blanket tighter around you, sighing in contentment as you begin reading the next chapter.
The fire has gone out, but the fairy lights still shine down on you as you rub at your bleary eyes and push the hair out of your face. Somehow, as you slept, you managed to wrap the blanket around yourself like a cocoon, and as you try to escape the blanket's embrace, you hear the soft thud of your book falling to the carpet. You lean over and pick it up, placing it on the table next to your empty cup.
You won't make it a habit, but curling back up and going to sleep wouldn't do any harm. You get up briefly to turn off the fairy lights, and curl back up in your blanket haven.
Doing something every evening isn't a habit, right?
And that's number 10!
Where's the trumpets and the fanfares?!
Pretend you can hear them.
I figured the last instalment in this series should be my imagined library in my imagined house in the country. In case you were wondering, the bookcases and the table are both wooden, and the books are all stacked haphazardly on the bookcase, some upright and some sideways. I haven't quite imagined the colour of the walls or the carpet yet.
Does everyone have a place that they have created in their mind, that would be just perfect for reading, or is it just me?!
Okay, that's all I have for now.
Bye!
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