Above is one of the largest and loveliest of all the books here at Downie Towers. Apart from a brief trip to the radiator to have its photo taken, it lives on the floor. It’s too big and heavy to go anywhere else.
However – if the property gods are kind (and here in the South of Britannia they are notoriously capricious) it may soon have a new floor to live on. Pushing aside all thoughts of packing, I remain inappropriately cheerful, telling myself that this will be a chance to Get the Books Organised At Last.
This is not a way to avoid doing more important things (well, not entirely). I really must get the books sorted out so I can see what’s here. Surely I’m not the only nitwit who has bought a book and then found there’s already a copy of it hiding on the shelf at home?
Oh.
Ah well. Filling the gap until the next Real Book arrives, I see that Alison Joseph has a Sister Agnes novel free on Kindle today (20 Feb) in the UK. For those who prefer Romans to contemporary nuns, there’s a great collection of ‘Tales of Ancient Rome’ by Simon Turney here – also free. Hooray!
Ruth Downie 
What I have always found most interesting about that image, is that she’s wearing a snood. My wife used to crochet them and occasionally wore one to keep her own hair up. My daughters have worn them too. So there’s almost 20 centuries of useful fashion that hasn’t eally changed in form or function much at all.
Interesting! I wonder how many of the lone hairpins we find on Roman sites were originally used to hold one of these in place? It would be much more practical than wrenching the hair round into an uncontained knot and ramming it with pins, as I can personally testify…