The Maroon Diaries

Hello dear readers, I hope you are enjoying your New Year's Eve celebrations. I am getting back on track with publishing my book list in a timely fashion. I'm afraid it's quite paltry pickings this year. I've had a lot going on. Not to mention the discovery of streaming services and binge-watching... I've linked the title of each book to its page on Goodreads , so you can click through and quickly get an idea of what kind of book it is. 1 Glad No Matter What by SARK 2010 2  The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman 1997 3  Wise Children by Angela Carter 1991 4  The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler 2014 5  The Palace of Curiosities by Rosie Garland 2013 6   The Great Automatic Grammatizator and Other Stories by Roald Dahl 1982 7   The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman 2000 8 Gypsy Cante: Deep Song of the Caves selected and translated by Will Kirkland 1999 9  Caught in a Story: Contemporary Fairytales and Fables edited by Christine Park and Caroline H

I had plans to spend New Year's Eve the same way I usually do, keeping out of the heat as much as possible, and writing up my Year in Books blog post. But something very dramatic happened that changed not just the day's plans, but an awful lot of my life. Around 4:30 am on December 31st, 2016, I found Mr CJ dead in the garden. This is the story of how that came to be. Followers of this blog will have noticed that I've spent the last several years as a carer for Mr CJ. He had been sick for seven and half years, slowly declining all that time. It started with a headache that wouldn't go away, no matter what. Some months of hospitals and testing later, it was discovered that he had arthritis in his neck, featuring a growth spur that was pressing on the nerves as they exited the spinal column at that point. That meant chronic pain in his head, neck, arms and shoulders, limited mobility in his arms and hands, and reduced sensitivity in fingers that limited his dexterity.