"Bitten off more than she can chew" made me think there's an awful lot of people saying yes to daunting things on the spur of the moment in Forest and what matters is how they cope with them, or don't. It keeps reminding me of that moment of horror in Ballet Shoes - "Petrova Fossil, what have you done? You have asked for a part you couldn't possibly act" - though fortunately for Petrova the moment of realisation occurs not when she is halfway up a cliff/trapped in a cinema with a member of a drug gang/in the middle of the school carol service. It ties in with all the bravery/courage/self-knowledge stuff, of which much more in Peter's Room.

I'm wondering now about the significance of why the people say yes to the scary thing - duty, overconfidence, not having thought through the implications, fear of other people's opinions of you, having been brought up to believe that you are supposed to take on character-building challenges... Have we got room for an "overarching themes" discussion once we've read through the lot?

I can never decide whether End of Term or Cricket Term is my favourite Forest but EOT is always my favourite Forest in December.