On the buses

When I was living in Cardiff, I was fortunate enough to be able to walk to work - perhaps not the nicest stroll scenery-wise (down Carlisle Street, along Sanquhar Street, over the Magic Roundabout and then along Atlantic Wharf), but certainly an enjoyable awakening on a crisp February morning and almost an hour's worth of exercise every day to boot.

These days the bus takes me practically door to door - convenient, yes, but it means I barely get to stretch my legs before getting down to a day's work. What's more, the reliability of the service in the morning leaves something to be desired (it can turn up pretty much any time between 8.10am and 8.30am), the timetable determines when I leave work and the bus always overcrowded on the way home.

But if bus travel has one advantage over Shanks' pony, it's that I get at least half an hour's reading time a day - which has meant that, after a long period of sluggishness, I've been galloping through books at a swift pace and with renewed enthusiasm, making significant inroads into my stash of still-unread tomes.

The only problem is that I'm struggling to keep up on the reviewing front - you know me, going without a review is just not an option. There are already four books waiting to be the subject of posts, and I'm a handful of pages away from finishing a fifth, Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. So, you can expect more literary and not-so-literary thoughts soon...