Where do I go when I want to curl up with a book? To cosy "Melbourne", that's where! 'Cosy', this untranslatable word, derivation unknown, came to us from the Vikings via the Scots, coined by two peoples who knew all about appreciating a warm nook out of the weather.
Quasimodo found his nook in the belfry; I found the right place to lose myself in a book in cosy "Melbourne". There I can forget time, forget the room, then the chair I sit on or the bed I lie on, and finally my very self.
Books can take us to a better place; they help us to get through what Nietzsche called 'the horror of living'. Being curled up with a book can be a chrysalis experience from which we emerge a different creature.
"Melbourne" is far enough from the rest of house which is full of inter-ruptions, or simply not cosy enough. And, like the book itself which is of paper from trees, it is halfway to the forest, that great source of myth.
It's a beautiful morning and I'm off to "Melbourne". In case the phone rings, I've told Padma to tell the caller that I've gone to Melbourne.
