#I'm late for the glorious 25th of may but by next year i'll finally know what everyone's talking about

[crocwork-clockodile]

I'm a little more than halfway through reading Terry Pratchett's Night Watch (yes I know, it's taken me a while, hush) and my dad, who introduced me to them when I was in high school, told me this was the first Discworld book he'd ever read. That made me feel all sentimental anyway, but this evening I realized this book has been part of my life far longer than I'd realized.

Young Havelock Vetinari, student at the Assassin's Guild school, has been researching different forms of camouflage found in the animal world, and thus is breaking Assassin tradition of wearing all black. It's stylish, but it's pointed out several times in this book that black silhouettes still stand out in the shadows. So he's taken to wearing grey and dark green, muddy colours. And reading that, I was overtaken by the memory of my dad, years ago, when I was just little, explaining to me that if you want to blend into the night, don't wear black, because the night isn't black, it's dark blues and greens and greys, and black will still stand out. I don't remember why he was giving me this Assassin instruction, but it stuck with me forever. And now, here I am, finding the man who taught my dad all those years ago. I love these books so much, they're such an intrinsic part of my heart, sometimes in ways I don't even realize yet!