I’m making progress on the library project.

What really strikes me is how much my interests have changed over the ten years since I quit my civil service job. Nowadays, I’m not willing to give houseroom to detailed official military histories of the first and second world wars. Neither do I wish to keep shelf-feet of military memoirs and accounts of derring-do.

Edmund accumulated books to an extraordinary degree. What strikes me now is how important it was to him to collect and keep books about the official British view of, especially, the Second World War, but also the expansion and eventual collapse of the British empire. Okay, I’m good with shedding those volumes.

I guess I’m still engaged in the painful business of extracting myself from my 25-year relationship with Edmund. Sorting the books is like having an extended debate with him about everything we were both brought up to hold dear.

It’s a good thing I’m not doing this on deadline.