On my way to work I pass by a canal, and this morning I saw a charming sight. There was a covered wire running along the side of the canal and then dropping into the water, as I walked passed there were three sparrows who were taking it in turn to land on the wire and then hop down towards the water and have a little drink and then fly up to the bank again so the next one could have a go. Charming may be looked upon as a quaint word these days, but the sight charmed me and put a smile on my face.

I was right about last night, it was a late finish. The book we were discussing was Happiness by Richard Layard; I would class it as Popular Science and not the normal sort of thing that we read. In the book Layard is putting forward a new social policy based on scientific evidence about happiness – I think, I must confess I only read half of the book and half of the conclusion. It provoked a good discussion, about what happiness is and what causes happiness. We all perceived happiness in a different way, I felt that it was an extreme emotion that is difficult to maintain, while someone else felt it was a much deeper emotion and what she described I would call contentment. When you start to think about it there are so many words to describe emotions and they can all be used in several ways.

The next book we will be sharing is The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, and then The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Sharp. We are a small group, eight in all, and we have been meeting for nearly two years now. I initiated things by putting posters up in some of the local shops, library and railway station asking people to contact me if they were interested in forming a group. I only got two replies, but we all knew someone else who was interested and so managed to get eight together. In the beginning the main concern was how to choose the next book, but now we rotate and bring three books and decide as a group which we should read next. We are going to look for a published reading list to try next. Over the two years a good and supportive atmosphere has developed, and although sometimes in our discussion we stray away from the book, we always have a good time.

A couple of other books I want to read soon are Clay by David Almond, it is set in Newcastle upon Tyne, my home town and writen for children. It sounds like a good read, 'A haunting and compelling novel' The Guardian. I also want to read The Gollum by Gustaf Meyrinck, which I think I am right in saying is a Jewish fable, but I may be wrong. I have wanted to read it for sometime and I think it will follow on well from Clay.

I am off to Liverpool for the day tomorrow, it is my 'cultural development' day. Although I work in a visual arts organisation I don't get out of the office much to see real exhibitions. So I get a cultural development day when I can get out to visit galleries. Last year I went to Newcastle, and this year Liverpool, I will be visiting the OpenEye Gallery, which is a photography gallery and Tate Liverpool. I am looking forward to it. I love photography and hope to put some photos on here soon.