I was reading one of the kids Beatrix Potter books and I found myself completely dumbstruck. I read the words “Mr. Jeremy put on a macintosh” and wondered what on earth a toad wanted with a computer while on a fishing trip? I asked Luke what a macintosh was and he looked at me as if I were an idiot and said “an Apple Mac”. I then read the sentence out to him and he said “yeah – he turned the computer on!” to which I replied with “oh der” and rolled my eyes since the story was first published in 1906. I had to look it up in Wikipedia because the only macintosh I was aware of was the computer and I was surprised to learn that way back in 1824 a Scottish inventor made a rubberized fabric coat… a waterproof raincoat… the macintosh! So just as ‘gay’ has lost it’s meaning and is now a sexual preference, the original meaning of macintosh has gone the way of the dinosaur.

I love reading, I’m proud to be a bookworm.  However I didn’t start reading for personal enjoyment until I was 14.  I remember my father bringing home a book that someone loaned him from work, it was Stephen King’s “Four Past midnight”.  The thing that struck me was the size of it…so thick…at 14 I thought that was the biggest book I had ever seen. (I now know he could write bigger!)  I started reading that book and was instantly hooked.  Stuff playing with my friends, I had found enjoyment in reading.  I could go on exciting adventures and never have to leave my house.   To this day I don’t think my father has ever read that book but it has changed my life.  I own every Stephen King book and my library contains many other authors including James Herbert, Clive barker, Tom Sharpe, Peter Straub, Peter Benchley and many many more.  So I’d like to say “thank you Stephen King for introducing me to the world of fiction.”  They (who ever they are) say you never forget your first love, well I say you never forget your first novel.

We love books in our household, we are all bookworms to the extreme. The lounge room has five book cases, the kids room has one, the playroom has one, and there are cookbooks in the dining room/ kitchen area.  Then there is the toilet which has a magazine rack with books in it and bath books for the kids in the bathroom.  Oh and our bedroom is too small for a bookcase but there are boxes of books under the bed.  If we ever had a house fire this place would go up in no time.  Perhaps we should consider contents insurance some day? My point is however that you can own a lot of books and pay next to nothing for them.  We just went to the Lifeline Bookfest and for $26 we got 140 books.  The trick is to go on the last day when you can fill a bag for $5 in the unpriced section.  They also have a  priced section which they reduce to half price. Lifeline put on two bookfests per year and we just LOVE them. Our library includes well know authors as well as those hard to find rare “gems”.  For a bookworm the Lifeline Bookfest is the closest thing to Heaven on Earth.