6. Pretoria, 1981 - Reading nooks
In which Eleanor delights in cozy corners.
Brothers and parents are annoyances to be tolerated and engaged with as little as possible. 
Eleanor
The house is quiet. Mummy is in the study grading papers. After a bad start to the winter, she’s well again, but now it’s school-work, school-work, school-work for her. Tig’s in his room building model airplanes. Daddy’s at work. I snuggle into my alcove and pull the curtains close around me. Next to the fireplace in the lounge there’s a window seat. It’s my winter holidays nest. It’s my own private world, where I can spend the whole day undisturbed. Reading, reading, reading.
There’s nothing else to do. The Beckhams are in Germany now. I miss afternoons and holidays with Aunty Trudy. We came back from the farm in the Drakensberg mountains last week. We’ve been going there every holiday and most long-weekends since Mummy and Daddy bought it last year. I love it there. I could happily spend the whole school holidays there. But we have to come back for Daddy’s work. And for Mummy to prepare for next school term. Reading in my cozy hideaway is almost as good, though. I pull the curtains closed and no-one can see me.
It’s lonely without Aunty Trudy to go visit. But I’m never alone when I’m reading. These winter holidays I am Anne with an e. Or Pollyanna. Or Susan or Lucy. Or Katy. Or Emily. I live far far away in magical realms of friends and adventures and mystery and wonder. I emerge reluctantly from my nest for lunch and supper. Then bury myself under the covers with White Foot and a torch after bedtime.
Books and stories are my friends, my world. Home and Mummy and Daddy and Tig are annoyances to be tolerated and engaged with as little as possible.
The winter holidays are mine to read, and read, and read.
Home is the cocoon in which we hopefully grow: comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. And the transporter, or time machine, is a story trapped on paper, bound between covers and yet able to take us far outside both its covers and our cocoon. Ah, the love of reading is a shared bond we both have.
Well dear Sue again something in common - we share the passion for reading from a very early age! Books were my friends and I escaped in that world every day! I used to eat while having a book close to the plate, I used to read while walking on the street, in the bus, everywhere. Years later I realised it was my way of escaping reality and more!