Hamroast Book Club

Tom has taken 3 months (off and on) to read Marco Polo - The Travels.

Despite a couple of interesting stories that show that China has not changed in 1000 years, reading this book was like reading the Domesday Book...incredibly dull. But worth it all for just one section on Russia near the end:

'The ladies do not withdraw to relieve themselves, but their handmaids contrive to give them relief unobserved with the aid of large sponges. Let me tell you something that happened on one occasion. A man and his wife were going home in the evening when the wife paused to relieve herself. The cold was so fierce that the hairs of her thighs froze onto the grass. Her husband stooped down and began to breathe over her, hoping to melt the ice by the warmth of his breath. But, while he breathed, the moisture of his breath congealed and so the hairs of his beard froze together with his wife's, and he too was stuck there unable to move from pain. Before they could budge from the spot, other helpers had to come and break the ice.'

We never saw such a thing in all our travels.