Pile problems

It is often said that people have never been busier than they are now and no longer have time for anything.

But the question I would ask is, how have parents of a young child EVER had time for anything?

The 16 months since Jamie was born have gone like a flash for me, and sometimes it feels like I barely have a moment to visit the loo. (But please don't be alarmed - all "little accidents" in our house since last June have been exclusively Jamie's, unless Vanessa's not telling me something).

Clearly, some former hobbies have had to be sacrificed through a basic lack of time or, indeed, sheer physical exhaustion. And one of these has been the task of getting through the huge pile of books I've built up over the last few years.

Ironically, I think I've read more in recent months than at any other time of my life. The "problem" is that the books I've been wading through are Jamie's rather than my own, with him plonked on my knee (no, I don't read them on my own!)

It is in this context that last night I was delighted to finally finish a book from my pile, the first of Jeffrey Archer's three prison diaries detailing his time in the clink.

It wasn't a particularly long book and it wasn't even that good. But I was determined to get there and get there I did - FIVE MONTHS after I started reading it. (Yes, that's 20 whole weeks).

The book, a hardback, has been to Northern Ireland with me - where I read a total of zero pages - to a caravan park in East Yorkshire - where I read two - and to Spain where I read four.

The next tome to be tackled is Piers Morgan's God Bless America: Misadventures of a Big Mouth Brit. You may not like Piers Morgan, I'm not sure I like Piers Morgan, but he does write an entertaining diary and, having read his previous two, I can't wait to get on with it.

Hopefully I'll have it finished by Christmas - 2010. Or possibly 2011.