It’s Saturday! And I have to end the rereading week here because I’m going out for dinner tomorrow (and have a pretty full day anyway) so I probably won’t have time to read much. Today was also a busy day, so I chose something short to reread:

This is The Girl with the Green Ear, a collection of short stories by Margeret Mahy. This was a book that I read a long time ago and then promptly forgot the title of. But, I remember one story about a very rainy town and that drove me to find the book – which I did in 2017.

As expected, this was a short but delightful read. It’s interesting to see how my favourites have stayed the same, and I’ve largely forgotten the rest so they were practically like new stories to me. I like how nature-centric these stories were; while not all of them involve magic or other elements of fantasy, all of them were about our relationship to the natural world. This time, I particularly enjoyed The Trees, about a girl who loves the trees outside her home but must face the fact that they have to be cut down.

Apart from this, I had a very book-filled day because I hosted the first real-world Book & Tea exchange! I’ve always done mail-based tea exchanges so hosting a group of people at a cafe was a first for me! I was very glad that 8 people showed up and we had a good time! Coincidentally, four of us brought 5 books each (the others brought a book each or just brought tea); it felt like my decision to bring 5 was the right one haha. I also thought it was really cute how TwentyCharm even tied ribbons and wrote cards for each book!

I’m so glad I did this and I ended up having a lot of fun chatting with people! It reminded me of the one time I did a Japanese tea introduction session with others and had fun; I hope I can find a place where I can make tea and host more of such events in the future!