how i hate to see october go

If only Jane Austen had had another twenty years of life. There are not enough Jane Austen books in the world.

If you could reach into the past and give someone an extra twenty years, who would it be, and why? I was going to put in a proviso of "not someone whose extra life would profoundly change the world", because plainly I am a trivial person who just wants more excellent books, but what the heck. Whom would you choose?

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Convention this weekend! Will be off to Harrogate on the coach on Friday morning. Have just bought a whole bunch of sweets for sharing on the journey. We will all be throwing up by the time we get to Yorkshire. We are third on in the competition, which will mean getting up early (by my standards) two days in a row, but to compensate, the clocks change on Sunday so there can and will be a lie-in.

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The Chaps have begun work on our front door. It is at present a squitty little front door, which was originally the back door of the house (I know it's weird), and really a very tiny thing, so we are having a very minor extension in order to have a decent sized door that can actually open. Because of the geography of the house it was not possible to just make a bigger door hole—not enough space for a bigger door to open—so this is going to involve putting in a sturdy pillar in order to make sure the house doesn't fall down. Eep. We have got the same builders who built our two extensions when we moved here. Probably a more expensive choice that we might have made, but we trust them, and when there is a risk of the house falling down, trust is important.

Probably won't have a new front door by Christmas....