Today I broke up my obsessive reading with more eating, as James and I headed down to the Taste Of Tasmania to sample it’s wares.

We had wild mushroom tempura from the Huon Valley, stout which had been brewed with whole oysters, goat curry and raspberry panna cotta. The stout was my favorite, but I couldn’t help being super sceptical and really searching for the fishy taste at the end of every mouthful. Thankfully it wasn’t there - oysters and I don’t have a fabulous track record, and I prefer to keep my distance where possible.

It’s been the first day of really gorgeous weather, and finally felt like what you’d expect around Christmas time. I’d assumed we’d be swimming pretty much every day, but earlier this week we walked the dogs on the beach and I relived my childhood by playing with sea anemones in a rock pool. It’s no exaggeration to say the water was subzero at best, and even Miss M with her inherited Tasmanian constitution would be hard pressed to keep breathing once she was submerged.

So the reading continues, with a Steven King pulp fiction novel James gave me for Christmas. Yesterday I read Michael Connolly’s latest Bosch book “Echo Park” which was so good I couldn’t put it down until it was done. I still have another Patricia Cornwall to go, but they’re so repetitive I don’t know if I can put myself through a fifth one. Probably I can though …

Today I’m loving: the necklace Paul (the stallholder next to my dad at Salamanca) gave me this morning. I’ll post a picture in a couple of days.