What Kati did next; Bedtime read that sent me to sleep

I USED to love reading books. They used to be pitched up all over the house. In the kitchen, the living room and yes, the loo.

It meant that I could always reach out and grab something to read. It could be anything from a sports biography to an historical tome.

I loved and loathed them in equal measures but I have never loved like the ladies I saw on telly the other week.

It was a programme about Mills and Boon. A well-known author, who writes not in the romance genre of Mills and Boon, was set the challenge of doing so.

You still with me? On her way she was whisked off to a Tuscan villa to workshop the synopsis, but before that she met four fans — four really big fans.

One lady, who in the past 30 years has spent £20,000 entirely on Mills and Boons and yes, it was pointed out to her that 30 years ago these books cost 50p, at full price, which meant that she was reading, roughly, 30 to 40 a month. Yes a month.

What happened to the washing up? What happened to the television? What happened to life? She didn’t need life apparently because she had Mills and Boon.

As I’ve said, I’m no literary snob, I will happily chow down on a 25p charity shop hardback but I have never read a Mills and Boon.

However, if one lady can devour 40 of these suckers a month I wanted to sink my teeth into one.

Since the baby arrived I have not had one second to pick up a Sunday Supplement let alone a full-blown novel, although I have tried.

I have gone to bed early especially to fold back the crisp pages of a new book but the moment my head touches the pillow I’m out cold.

Watching this programme gave me an incentive. There is one story in Mills and Boon: feisty yet beautiful girl meets arrogant attractive man.

They fall in love, partly due to unforeseen circumstances and then are brought back together to share the rest of their lives in an amazingly glamorous setting.

How hard can that be to read? Huh? So I took “Cinderella and the Cowboy” to bed.

I folded back the crisp pages and woke up eight hours later with the book stuck to my head.

Like I said, I used to love reading books.