Displacement Activity

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Yesterday I was supposed to be painting another wall of my office, but it was so darn cold that even with three jersies on I couldn't face the thought of painting with the window wide open in a room that was already freezing. Plus, I had managed to lose my one and only radio and the thought of painting without the accompaniment of Radio 4 was just too much.


So, what shall I do, I thought? Orders were very sparse yesterday; I'd been cataloguing like mad and really didn't fancy doing yet more. I really needed to go through my old stock and reduce it before Christmas, but the book storage room has no heating. The woodpile outside badly needed some attention, which at least would have had the advantage of warming me up (wood warms you three times: once when you cut it down, once when you cut it up and then when you finally burn it), but I wimpishly couldn't face the thought of getting even colder before I got warmer.


So, I thought I'd look at all the things I'd been putting off doing for the website. Oh, the shame. Because I am such a master at displacement activity I like to have a lot of things on the go but I don't often go through my files to check up on all the things I have started. There were some things there I'd started 2 years ago, and not finished. Poor, bereft, lonely little bibliographies, there they were; enthusiastically noted down and then deserted. So I sat down and, armed with cups of tea which seemed to lose their heat within seconds (always a vaguely depressing experience) I got down to it.


And goodness, I thought, don't I like the obscure? I have now tackled most of the major pony book authors (with the exception of Judith Berrisford and Mary Gervaise) but they certainly weren't the ones I went for first. I'm not really sure why this is. Is it because I like ferreting out information that no one else has thought of putting out there? Goodness knows. Anyway, the fruits of my labours are now on the site here: not all obscure, but if anyone else has ever thought of writing something about John Thorburn's Hildebrand I'd like to know why.

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