Day off Week 7 2019

This week's day off came around rather quickly this time. I woke in an unhelpful mood and could not settle to anything at first. I had arranged a mid-morning coffee time and prayer meeting around 11 (we are having a week of prayer meetings). The wives of our two deacons came, one with her three home schooled children. We were joined for good or ill by two ladies from the area we know. Like others from the area, they are very exercised about a plan to remove over 90 trees from the immediate area this month and that issue threatened to dominate rather but we got through somehow. After that I took Alffi for a walk and made a big dent in this Costa prize winning book The cut out girl which is very good. In the evening after Eleri returned home we watched the latest Shetland on BBC. We love Shetland. It not only gives you a detective mystery to ponder that being in an isolated community has that Agatha Christie Country House quality that these things need but there is a sort of stillness that you get that is very attractive. I'm always planning to visit while watching but probably never will.

Sheath or sheaf

I have really enjoying Bart van Es's prize winning book The cut our girl. I was surprised, however, to find on page 209 what appears to be a mistake.
Half way down the page he begins a new paragraph

On the desk in my hotel room lies a second sheath of papers.

Surely that should be

On the desk in my hotel room lies a second sheaf of papers.

Professor Paul Brians of Wahington State is with me on this. (If you take your knife out of its sheath (case) you can use it to cut a sheaf (bundle) of wheat to serve as a centerpiece.) It is apparently a common error and yet this is written by a Professor of English Literature at Oxford University and appears in a Penguin paperback. I have contacted him and he confesses embarrassment. We've all been there.