Dickens and dyslexia

The hols have allowed me to take some time out to read and I've just consumed my first ever Dickens. How shocking to have attained my great age with such an omission from my education, but it was a treat to meet a 'new' talent. I'm a slow reader - partly due to my dyslexia, no doubt - and I've never learned to skim, so I enjoy and savour books which speed readers forget.

Poor sickly Mrs Gradgrind came up with my two favourite quotes from Hard Times. The first was her speaking to her children:

'I wish,' whimpered Mrs Gradgrind, taking chair... 'yes I really do wish that I had never had a family, and then you would have known what it was to do without me!'

Then the other reminded how difficult some people find it to describe their symptoms. This also made me smile.

'Are you in pain, dear mother?'
'I think there is a pain somewhere in the room,' said Mrs Gradgrind, 'but I couldn't positively say that I have got it.'

Here's hoping 2013 will bring you lots of good reads to make you smile too.

Happy New Year.