Showery and a reading day. Current reading aloud book is Judith Flanders' A Circle of Sisters. It's the story of four sisters from a large middle class Victorian family who through marriage became the wives of Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne Jones and Edward Poynter (who became head of the Royal Academy), and the mothers of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and poet Rudyard Kipling. It's highly readable but still a well referenced piece of scholarship, as much a pleasure for the social history as for the narrative. A "real" book, though, so only readable in daytime natural light.
Mildly annoyed that, for the second time in a week the sisters who clean the hotel have skipped our flat. Just thinking we should say something when there's a knock at the door. Housekeeping? Well, sort of. Kiki, the receptionist, and Venera, the younger cleaner, with a foil covered plate of baking. It's the birthday of Maria, the older sister and she has been baking. It seems ungracious to mention the non-cleaning in the same breath as the thanks for baking, so we don't. But no return visit with a mop. As J says, no one should have to clean on their birthday.
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