..all too short a date

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

Sonnet 18: W Shakespeare

After a very long wait, the clock is now ticking in countdown for a holiday - and next Wednesday it will be off to Guernsey for a couple of weeks.

There is a process of discernment, evaluation, selection and rejection which is much more important than the question of mere clothes. This will be primarily a reading and relaxing holiday - so what to take? New reads or old? Stimulating or soothing? Needing thought, or guaranteed to send quickly to sleep?

On the shelves there is enough to take care of a hundred holidays. But these three were lying around. All in the re-read category. "Runaway Jury" - one of John Grisham's finest (pity about the film!) "Parahandy" was a steamer skipper delivering freight around the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. And "Summer's Lease" tells the story of a holiday in Tuscany.

Now my blip-friend - Amalari - I am entirely sure was never involved in a criminal conspiracy to blackmail people over lack of water - but her fabulous photography all year has whetted my appetite for that part of the world.

So these three are strong candidates. We shall see what the competition is like come Tuesday.

But the truth of the matter is that - as ever - summer's lease will have all too short a date. It will be over, and done, before I know it.