19.40 SundaySalon

Oh, I have been so very, very slow..but in much excitement in the introduction as I come across familiar places and people - Buenos Aires, for instance (and imagine myself there again) and then Athanasius Kircher (the latter the name of a wondrous society devoted to the weird and bizarre I have mentioned many times and based on the Father's own love of the eccentric. For instance, one of his stunning inventions was the sunflower clock (a bouquet of blossoms whose heads followed the sun and hence indicated time)).

There is then, that very fashionable of literary devices unfolding here - a story within a story - which I like. An onion of a book, then, and even though my eyes are not watering yet I am slowly peeling away layers.