Any fool can sell books.

The molecatcher has just been in with a Mormon Bible he hoped I'd make an offer for. It was a very smart one in a leather case with a zip and a little handle that turned it into a sort of handbag with an outside pocket, presumably for putting ones notes in. I showed him how to create a listing for it on Amazon. It would stay on the shelves here for ever. He told me that trade had been 'steady' at the indoor mart this morning and he had scored £60. That is a lot more than I have scored sitting here all day and underlines my urge to get out of this shop, at least by next year. What with one thing and another I feel that anyone can sell books and there is absolutely no sense of achievement any more. In a different location things might be better. I am not the bad workman who blames his tools, but it does seem that this town isn't the best place for a bookshop. Last year I was getting an average of £450 a week from the High Street throughout the year, a great deal deal less than Bryn in Ballater but enough to keep me happy when another third-to-a-half of that was added by internet sales and there was the occasional boost from the proceeds from Fairs. This year it has been consistently worse on the High Street. I have had other factors to buoy the takings but, well, it's getting to be dull work ducking and diving!
Charles Leakey, the bookseller in Inverness who has an enormous converted church for his shop, started with a tiny shop and was of the opinion that as long as he had the right books people would come. Times have changed. That might not be altogether true nowadays. The internet has moved the goalposts.

There is a certain skill in buying the right books and paying the right price for them. I think I'm getting quite proficient at that now and maybe that is the problem. There's no edge to it.

I need a new challenge.

Silence

Much as I like silence it sems rather strange to be sitting here without music on a Saturday. This used to be my one day for playing cd's in the shop, but when I found out I had to pay for a licence I stopped. I'm not making THAT much profit. Chloe can play music without a licence because she is 'medical' or a therapist or somesuch category so she has the music in her room when she is working. If it bleeds through into mine I won't get charged for it. I may have disregarded the notice when it came round after the shop opened but it arrived again this time for Chloe and she rang up to get the full picture. Now I really don't dare flout the rules.

There is beautiful sunshine outside and very few people have wanted to come inside. Boring. Never mind, only one more hour to go. Then a glass or two of wine and some weeding I think. I wonder what the rest of the world is up to? My grandson had trouble catching his pony this morning - so did the rest of the humans up at the stables. They were all out trying to coax her in. She needs a horse-whisperer that minx.

Saturday.

And here we are at the end of the week at the end of the month again. How time gallops. I refuse to quote the one about 'When I was a child time crawled...) too depressing in the actuality.

My two hours off were spent with the retired Minister and his wife who were shop-sitting for H. Jim officiated at the wedding of Chloe and Geordie so was naturally disappointed to hear what had come of that union, however he is a man of the world as well as of the cloth so nothing really shocks or phases him as far as I can tell. They brought me up-to-date with the unrepentant progress of Mr Toad, sordid in its predictability. One of his trawl nets is always out in the bipolar chat rooms and he has landed a woman there who has a husband - but will that be protection enough? There is a trip planned to Bulgaria to 'help' set up an internet business selling English books. I remember a woman he met a few years back through the same channels. Her equilibrium was precarious, made more so by a new baby and other young children (there is a husband.) He drove down to 'help.' The form the 'help' took was spending the night with her. She was hospitalised the next day. When he told me the (slightly edited) version he hadn't even the grace to look ashamed. Jim joined the dots on that one.

Two or three Christmases ago I read David Botting's biography of Gavin Maxwell who was also bipolar but not diagnosed. It touched me at the time because I was still seeing Mr T as ill and therefore needy of understanding and forgiveness. As the years have passed and the drama has played out this view has been modified. Maxwell didn't hurt people. He may have had many schemes that didn't succeed and he may have shot off in all directions whilst carried inappropriately by enthusiasms, but he persisted in holding Camusfearna together, in valuing his friendships and treating people decently. The only woman who was hurt by him was Kathleen Raine who was in love with him and frustrated that he couldn't return that love. But he was privately homosexual, a fact she must have become aware of as he did admit it to friends.

The Maxwell story is hypnotic to me. Whilst my flesh shrinks at the discomfort of the living conditions and the huge physical challenges of the life he chose, his closeness to the otters and to the landscape has something metaphysical about it. His writing is so very personal that it is easy to feel I know the man as well as if I had met him. He disliked writing but often wrote like a poet and could move a sentence from the mundane to the extraordinary with a word.

St. Patrick

The much gentler but still robust St. Patrick's Cabbage.

Crunchy I'd have thought.

Walls

The journal seemed to be getting a bit colourless again and although this isn't the best moment in my garden for colour I thought the walls might make a suitable subject. This oddly huge plant was left by the last owner, a real gardener. It shoots out triffid-like proboscii which I take to be flowers, but they are really rather sinister having tiny flowerlets then large brown seed pods on very long thick stalks. I wouldn't dare to get rid of it. There is a threatening air to it when I pass as though it reads my thoughts.

Negative vibes

I feel jittery and tense. If I were my long-suffering friend G I would have a migraine I suspect. The barometric pressure again? It is heavy and thundery. My daughter, working next door, came out of her room to ask me if there had been a 'weird person' in in the shop because whilst she was trying to tune in to her patient (she does cranial osteopathy as well as the more ordinary massage and manipulation) a blast of strong negativity from outside the room hit her, causing her hackles to rise (metaphorically) and seriously unnerving her. Theere were two men browsing at the time she noticed this. They seemed OK but who knows what was going on in their heads? Perhaps the weather is making them a bit murderous. As I have been reading 'Maxwell's Ghost,' in which Richard Frere regularly hears ghostly conspiratorial whispers outside one of Maxwell's cottages, and Maxwell himself (in 'Raven Seek Thy Brother') tells of a time when poltergeist activity broke out in another cottage, I am very disposed to believe her. Maybe the electric pre-storm atmosphere carries the emotional charge from people more ...erm... loudly?

When Chloe was a child she once told me of the 'apparition' who joined us at breakfast time whilst we were living in a cottage in Findhorn. She described the clothes he was wearing as 'old fashioned,' baggy trousers, thick shirt and leather jerkin, probably roughly what a country lad might wear in almost any century. I subsequently discovered that he has been seen attempting to join groups of drinkers outside the pub just across the lane from the cottage. The next person to stay in the cottage told me she never felt alone there, but that was later. After the breakfast incident when I got back from the school run, I stood in the kitchen and told the chap I didn't want him frightening my children (or me for that matter) so would he please not let himself be seen or heard whilst we were there. I might have made some suggestions about finding his way to the next level. It seemed to work.

Shoptalk

As mentioned the week has been spent listing books. More from the resourceful William of the bird-watching and fishing variety, and more Folio Society. Well, I would groan about the number of FS around the shelves, but the last time I had Proust he sold, to my surprise. He's one of those writers many of us feel we should have read and some of us (my ex for instance) actually do read, so now the shop is properly armed with the Works if anyone is overcome by the urge. I've been asked for Joseph Conrad fairly often lately - now I have a complete set. (So will never be asked again?) It's a pity Folio Society books aren't cool in the way that Penguin Books are. Maybe one day they will be.

The few tourists around are happy to buy the Scottish stock (I just wrote Scottish sock. Maybe one of them would sell too.) Next week the town has its bi-annual influx of visitors from the twin town in Germany. I have my 'Wilcommen' sign in the window but hope they don't think that means I have any other German conversation. It's quite - interesting for want of a better word, this twinning with German towns. In my experience there is still a entrenched dislike of Germans amongst the older folk even if they have learned to moderate their views in public. Maybe I'll watch 'Heimat' again (I have been left with it whilst its owner travels into Belgium and Germany, to the very region where 'Heimat' is set which pleases him. It transpires Danielle has some cousins living there.

That's not much about the shop - but then there isn't much happening sadly.

I can't find my way into fiction yet. More time needed?

Time and reality when you're nearly ten.

My grandson Sandy, who is completely out of step with 'reality' at the moment, is asleep on my couch upstairs. He can't get to sleep at night, spends the nighttime hours doing interesting things, then can't go to school in the daytime. No fool him! His poor mother is distracted. How to break the pattern? We get hardly any darkness at present but he is still required to stick to the same routine. Civilisation has all-but destroyed our natural rhythms and children suffer most.

Too much reality....

....can be bad for you! Oh yes Chillsider, it really can!

There has been no time for fantasy for the last few days and I'm feeling the worse for it. I started listing books at 8.30am yesterday and finished at 5pm with very few interruptions for talking to customers because despite the inclement weather there weren't any. Tut. A day for ducks in more than one way. By the end of the stint I felt thoroughly irritable and unable to do more than watch Relic Hunter and all subsequent escapist TV. Now if I were a true writer that would have been writing time. I have this belief that they are driven to write, but reading Richard Frere's book about his years working for and with Gavin Maxwell I come across a hole in my argument. Maxwell didn't like writing. He did it for the money which he was generally very short of and the proceeds enabled him to do the things he liked. Now I wonder how many other writers are economy driven rather than impelled by their genius? I missed a lot of the interview with Doris Lessing on BBC1 the other night and even after I had discovered it was on (I'm an accidental viewer) I watched reluctantly. I've revered her writing for so long that I don't actually want to find out about the real woman. She puts herself into her novels anyway - everything one might say. There is a lurking dread she might spoil her work for me - how irrational is that? To me it's proof that once we have created something - anything really - it doesn't belong to us any more but to the people who see it and absorb it into their lives one way or another. I feel proprietorial about Doris's novels. They have become an important part of me

Time.

"Huxleyian parallel life-times. " Maybe I'm not so bad at fiction as I thought - but inadvertently. Huxley and J.B.Priestley were interested in time and the theories of John William Dunne. Their work reflects that - especially Priestley's - but Dunne's theory had nothing to do with parallel lifetimes. He posited that linear time is an illusion brought about by human consciousness and that past present and future are in fact simultaneous, explaining pre-cognitive dreams and the 'deja vue' experience.

I'm now on a quest to discover where I picked up the idea of parallel universes. It is a concept I have held pre- Philip Pullman and as I completely doubt my ability to have had an original thought I must have got it from somewhere. Quantum mechanics, about which I have read in popularised versions, picking out the few bits I could grasp? William James? Unlikely. Science Fiction - more likely, but I usually have to know there is a credible source or mind behind an idea before I adopt it as my own. Diana Wynne Jones uses it in her Chrestomanci stories. The interesting fact is that it does seem to be in common consciousness.

I have a theory (which obviously is not original) that when human consciousness happens upon an idea, a concept, or a form, if the concept or form has not existed before it comes into existence in that moment. The creation of a 'ghost' in the Philadelphia experiment' at least partially bears this out. The Hundredth Monkey story that originated with Lyall Watson and Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory have been discredited but still.... they have an appeal and make a sort of sense. What's existence all about if we can't take the bits we like and create our own reality from it?

Wormholes

I like the theory (notion.... conceit?) that black holes pull matter in from this universe to reassemble it in another. Whatever the truth, it's a good and positive image for depression which occasionally can drag consciousness down to a depth where only reassembling is possible - and very occasionally that new assemblage is the start of a new life, or at the very least a new perception of the old.

Which is a way of saying I have been - still am - in a black hole, mostly caused by the inability to get out on my day off. The virus, well I could have 'risen above it' if it had been a work day, but it ruled out outdoor activity and all the indoor stuff seemed jaw-breakingly dull so I re-read three Ruth Rendels and watched Midsommer Murders. I suppose it could be said the depression was self-inflicted.

The iMac has been switched off for 40 hours, almost unheard of. Other than the folk who have ordered books from me (praise their names) the worlds that might collide with mine seem to have gone to sleep too.

A creative friend suggested running a fictional thread into this journal. I'm thinking about that. I'm not very good at fiction, (which doesn't say much for MY creative imagination) and if I'm going to do it it might be rather different to how she had envisaged. More sci-fi or sci-fantasy than Eng. lit. Inspired by Star Trekkian worm holes and Huxleyian parallel life-times.

Places along the journey where the road forked. I can think of one or two. The idea will have to cook a bit.

Enjoyable prose.

There's a very enjoyable article in the Bookdealer by 'Fashion Victim.' I like his style. He is grumbling about the ratio of Mills and Boone to hardback copies of Virginia Woolf or first editions of Hemingway in his local Sally Army charity shop. Then he goes on to tell of a friend living in Canada who makes £750 a week by importing M&B and selling them to a dealer who can't get enough of them. This leads to musings about snobbism in the book world, the onus on us to educate, maybe by sitting Virginia next to Catharine Cookson in the window in the hope she might be accidentally bought, enjoyed and and espoused by the common reader. In the context of the Amazon world I inhabit it's a quaintly old fashioned few columns of flow of consciousness from someone who must deal mainly in fine literature. He can never have plumbed the depths of the Amazon sellers' board to meet the megalisting denizens of the warehouse worlds and the 'small sellers' who congratulate each other on achieving PPI status, or exchange anxieties about the potential structural problems caused by having 6000 books crowded into a third floor flat. True we won't be stockpiling Mills and Boone or Readers Digest condensed (even we have our standards) but there are plenty of writers published elsewhere who are equally low grade Eng. lit. selling at a penny, but which sold in large enough quantities with PPI and Amazon postage allowance can mount up to a decent income.

There's room for all business models in this world.

The need to be specific.

We are taught that in the process of manifestation one must be exact about what it is one is manifesting. So often one is reminded of this by experience but does one listen? No. I've just realised that today I was offered by two different people several leather bound books, as wished for in this place recently. Excellent. They look lovely. The text in every case is in French however, so I will probably be able to admire them on the shelves for some time.

Sweaty day.

Here I am running a temperature, sweaty and chilled in turn, hardly able to croak, and the shop has been really busy. Another example of Murphy's Law (or Sod's Law. Must check the difference.) The jolly men from England came in for the third time to say (several times, correcting each other, finishing other's sentences) that they had finally been succesful in catching Wilma's shop open, were pleased with what they found there and had made purchases, so good for Wilma. They bought yet another book from me and off they went with promises to return in September.

William came by to drop off some more 'Scottish interest' and today I found out he buys old farm machinery and does it up.

Someone asked me out to dinner in a circuitous sort of way in between talking about books. I ducked the question. Shame. He's really nice, good looking, the right age, intelligent, and I'm not attracted in the least. That's the way it goes. Undoubtedly he just wants some female company as his wife died last year, but much as I would enjoy some male company, even at my age I've noticed there has to be a certain edge to the connection before I'd be willing to get more friendly than the shopkeeper/customer sort of friendly. Daft really.

I have learned about the maneaters of Tsavo, a pair of maneless lions who got the taste for human flesh and were responsible for the deaths of about 130 construction workers on the Kenya-Uganda Railway, from March through December 1898. They were hunted down by the man in charge of the works, spent some years as his rugs then went to a museum in Chicago to be reconstructed. They do look rather sleek.

Then I learned about the reasons for playing the banjo from a man who bought a tutor from me and is about to get going on it.

Then I exchanged thoughts on neurosis and Freud with a young man. Then I enthused about Sulamith Wolfing's paintings with a woman buying a mounted print of one for a birthday present. Then poetry and ... as I have said before, this is a great way for a butterfly mind to pass the day.

In between times I have been doing my grandson's homework. I don't approve of 9 year olds getting homework and this seemed particularly brutal; a project on Niagara Falls, and Angel Falls in Venezuela, to contain pictures, maps, facts interestingly presented with footnotes and a bibliography. Good grief. It took me 4 hours. if I hadn't done it his mother would have had to and she really doesn't have the time. It has to be typed out so he doesn't have to write it out himself - he can use what I have typed. All he has to do is remember the facts. The teacher didn't provide any source material at all. The only books I could find were encyclopaedia's which had about a paragraph on Niagara and a sentence on Angel Falls. There ws nothing to put in the 'bibliography' but web sites as sources.

When I was at teachers training college we were told to work from the particular to the general - the children would have been much better off doing a project on the local river, the Findhorn. It might have meant something to them.

I quie enjoyed doing it though.

A few hours away.

My weekly couple of hours away from the desk was spent getting to the hygienist and back. Not my favourite trip. Frankly I'd rather see the dentist. I asked her if there was a cure for yellowing teeth, supposing she would tell me I drink too much coffee. As tactfully as she could she said it is nothing to do with the coffee but an age-related change. Rats. The only good thing about that knowledge is that I shall be even less inhibited with my coffee intake. On the way back from this treat I called in to the Costa Coffee at Tesco to celebrate. It was a pleasant surprise to find it hasn't yet been trashed by the locals, remains pleasing to the eye and feels fresh. Probably the customers who frequented it when it was a greasy spoon doing all-day breakfasts have deserted it now it is rather elegant. There were a couple of groups of students from the Academy who are in the middle of their Highers just now hanging out on the sofas. I know about the Highers because a nice young customer who is a musician (composer one day he hopes) came in to bend my ear about his progress the other day. He talked about music, the rotten teaching at the school, the inspiration behind the great musicians and so on and so on. Youth is so intense - and I can always rise to the occasion, matching their intensity. This is a excellent occupation for the butterfly mind, as I have said before.

Returning to food. As I always do. I trawled the charity shops in Nairn with fair success, although one of them has delusions of grandeur with its prices. Lots of cookery books and gardening books to avoid. The trouble with both those subjects (and others) is that people keep re-inventing the wheel so that the shelves quickly fill up with variations on a theme and there are so many copies printed that nothing is worth much anyway. I've demoted most of the gardening books to the garage for the Saturday sale at £1 & 50p and cookery books likewise. Although gardening really isn't my field (notice the pun there.... OK then I'll get my coat...) I think I can spot the ones worth stocking. I haven't had anything offered that meets the grade for ages.

It's safest to stick to the subject one does know at least a bit about and therefore I put the emphasis here on literature, poetry, art, children's books and of course history. The history section frequently vexes me. I just wish I didn't get offered so much about wars. There were other things that happened besides bloody battles and futile squabbles over religion, politics and territory. I do accept wars were in some way expressing the social consciousness of the times and therefore important, if depressing. Pre-history interests me more, maybe because it leaves more to the imagination and the forensic detective work needed to figure it all out is endlessly fascinating - until they have figured it all out when it becomes rather dull. Now the ancient Egyptian WERE interesting and their culture appears to have been rather less focused on fights over mundane things and more on the afterlife and possibly on initiation into the higher thought processes (if Rudolph Steiner is to be believed.) Civilisation has rather gone into a black hole since their times

Which brings me to the Occult and Wicca. They have been selling well this week as featured in The Window. The RAF chappie came back for another book on ghosties. I hope he doesn't go down the same route as the young long-distance lorry driver who used to visit during the first couple of years the shop was open. He bought Alastair Crowley's books and others on the black arts. A nice young chap with a shaved head, tattoos and an alarming number of piercings visible (so probably also more less visible.) He talked with enthusiasm about his reading material which he took with him for the sleep-overs on the way down the motorway. Not what I had expected lorry drivers to be tucked up with in their cabs. The last time he came in he was about to camp out in the churchyard opposite Crowleys' ex house on Loch Ness and was hoping to see some of the entities C forgot to clean up after himself. I have never seen him again.

I have a horrible feeling I've already related this story in this place.... another age-related event?

Down memory lane.

The trip into my past has been inspired by Chillside's blog about stitching machines and 'Domestic Science.' I remember very well coming bottom of the class at least once. I was frequently accused of 'cobbling' stitches. I hated sewing then and have continued to hate it. My son learned to stitch his own buttons on at 13. (His sister's didn't as far as I recall, but he was the practical one and had equiptment for mending all his sailing gear including an awl with which he made pouches for his belt amongst other things. He is a whiz at knots and gave us adults all baggywrinkles, napkin rings and table mats made out of natural rope. One thing led to another and he found it was quicker to sew a button on his shirt for the school dance than wait for me to dig out my sewing stuff from the back of the wardrobe.)

All I remember of the cooking classes was being made to clean the sinks with Gumption. This portion of the lesson took much longer than the interesting bit. Shown how to chop parsley with a knife I proudly told the mistress we had a gadget at home for parsley chopping, a sort of roller with blades. A very sophisticated recent addition to my mother's very simple kitchen. She acidly replied that I couldn't always expect to be able to afford gadgets. I think of her often when I switch on the food processor etc. etc.

Unlike the sewing class and the abyssmal French lessons (which I declare prevented me for ever from being able to speak French comfortably) the school experience didn't cloud my future as a cook. Even before I maried I liked cooking and would argue with my dad over who was to cook the Saturday lunch when mum was at work. Once I had my own kitchen and a few wooden spoons there was no stopping me. The careful reading of good recipes by world class chefs stood me in good stead when we moved to Brussels and 'Entertaining' figured highly in the weekly activites. My enjoyment of the culinery arts was greatly enhanced by the enthusiasm of my husband for almost all the dishes I tried. It would have been no fun at all cooking for one of those men who only like plain food or what their mother used to cook. His mother didn't cook much at all, even in the 50's she managed to find convenience foods to avoid taking dirt vegetables into the third floor apartment, and N went to boarding school anyway so home cooking was a treat for him. I valued his appreciation - except on one occasion when he came back from a 'mission' to Paris with a recipe book holder for me.

I felt the romance had died a little.

Freudisms

With interest renewed in Freud I found a web page of quotations from the great man. Here are a few of my favourites:

* If you can't do it, give up!

* If youth knew; if age could.

* Love and work... work and love, that's all there is.

* Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they someimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

* Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.

* The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilisation.

* Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

.....and I think everyone knows this one: 'Time spent with cats is never wasted.'

Ghosts and dreams.

The last two customers were easier to chat to on their chosen subjects than the earlier ones. A young girl who dragged her father in to buy her a book she had located earlier in the day on dreams, then a shy chap who has been in many times, mostly to buy books about planes and war, today bought one about ghosts. Finally I found out where he lives and works and has his being - RAF Kinloss. I was quite surprised. He told me that the officer's mess is reputedly haunted although it was built in 1990. Not haunted by a departed officer, but by a little girl.

I have been reading a crime novel in which Freud and Jung figure: "The Interpretation of Murder" by Jed Rubenfeld. it's very good. Set in New York in 1909 when Freud made his one trip to America, it gives an interesting view of life at the time when the vast engineering feat that constructed the Manhattan Bridge was under way and the horse was giving way to the petrol engine. Freud was a success but returned with a life-long dislike of the country. He said: " Yes America is gigantic, but a gigantic mistake.' No one seems quite sure why he took against it.

The story weaves fact with fiction very neatly and credibly, using actual contemporary murders on which to hang the plot, and colouring it all with the new psychotherapeutic methods and the strange bevahiour of Jung. It even incorporates the moment when Jung claimed to cause a startlingly loud gunshot-like report in the middle of an argument with Freud by 'telekinetic exteriorisation.' He told Freud it would happen again - and it did.

Now this sort of history mystery (history mystory) I am much happier with than coats of arms and campaigns.

Folio Society

Oh dear I do wish someone would offer me books that aren't Folio Society. I am about to get more. Proust, well that will be good, and some history, and Conrad, and a Golden Treasury. They will sell, as long as I price them down, but I long to be offered some leather lovelies.

Off colour

I'm under attack by virus. It wasn't a good day for certain would-be customers to visit. A Frenchman wanted to know why St. Laurence is the patron saint of Forres. I have no idea. Then he asked what the symbols are in the Forres coat of arms on which the saint takes centre stage. Well, in one hand he holds the iron bedstead on which he was martyred by roasting to death, so that's easily explained and much better forgotten. In the other hand he holds a Bible and that's OK ,although he may have escaped a roasting if he had let go of it. But why are a sun and crescent moon hanging alongside him? Search me. I don't have the right sort of enquiring mind to satisfy the historians sadly. I sent him to the Museum.

My lack of sympathy for martyrs made me a social outcast one memorable occasion in the Abbey on Iona. The day was wet and I thought I might as well sit in for a service going on in a side chapel. The service involved the uncomfortable modern 'turn round and meet your neighbour' moment. The woman next to me turned expectantly to ask me where I had come from, what I was doing etc. I was honest about the wet day and the vague idea I had had that being present during a service might be an interesting experience outside my normal range, so that was already disconcerting for her. When it was my turn to ask her she told me rather stiffly she was going to be a missionary. The thought crossed my mind: ' That's brave, but it seems to me missionaries do more harm than good, and don't they often come to a sticky end?' The thought didn't encounter any brain cells on its way to my mouth so I said it. It turned out to be a gathering of people about to go out into the Third World on Missionaries work. Tea and biscuits were offered after the praying and singing, but everyone gave me a wide berth.

The next chap through the door today wanted something about the Burma Campaign. I tried to look intelligent, hoped I was looking in the right area, and not making it too obvious I have no idea about the Burma Campaign nor could I care less, (although I do see it has some relevance to the present situation. Seems that Burma was like Belgium - a piece of land to be stomped over by warring factions wanting it as an access or just as extra territory to make a big power bigger. Messy.)

I have learned to respect the folk who are interested in the world wars because they either fought in them or lost family during the course of them, but it took a me while to overcome an abhorence for the war-tourists who see the 'show' as a Schoolboys Own adventure. Still, my no doubt naive disapproval has to be stifled if there's a sale to be made.

There was also the bi-annual visit from a couple of men who always make me wonder if they are a couple. In their 60's, obviously English, they travel North mainly to visit bookshops. Each time they come by they spend a very long time browsing, exclaiming all the while to to each other over editions, one reminding the other: 'You have that one... got it in old so and so's, don't you remember?' I'm not sure they have ever bought a book in here but they both think they have.

No matter. The books like to be browsed.

A good start to the week.

There I was this time yesterday, slobbing about in my nightie, having my day off, when Wilma from 'Bookends' in Portsoy rang to say she would be coming this way and was I open. Well - no, and then again - YES! One is always open to another bookseller. The Portsoy Boat Festival is happening soon and it is a busy time for Portsoy businesses so she wanted to supplement her stock. She brought her new man along with her, so that was interesting too. He is very nice, has many interests, and likes to buy books about them, which meant I sold a book by a Kruger National Park ranger that I never seriously expected to shift. Also a book about fly fishing. All this whilst Wilma stacked up a pile of titles of maritime and local interest. A very nice and unexpected kick-off to the week.

Add to that the arrival of the baclava and kataifi, delicous honey and nut stuffed treats that Sophie brought back from Greece and I am feeling quite mellow.

Add also the fortuitous find of a title asked for last week by the niece of a young ornithologist, Ewen Kennedy, who died tragically before his time, but left a great legacy in the Natural History Notes he started making whilst he was still at school. His niece is on a bike tour of the Highlands, following in his footsteps, in search of copies of the book of which there were only 70 printed. She gives them to members of the family and as more children are born feels herself under pressure to track more and more copies.

Saturday again.

The sun is shining and the birds are singing and my shop is full of people. The first two are quite usual occurrences, the third is more exceptional. I very nearly didn't open until later in the day because when I took my orders up to the Post Office the High Street was deserted. I'm glad I thought better of it. That's one of thwe difficulties of being in this trade - or maybe any. If I stayed open 24/7 I MIGHT get a sale at any time; possibly not midnight or 4am. But one is never sure.

Through the sellers noticeboard I have discovered Persephone Books a publishing company started by a Nicola Beuaman who enjoyed reading many of the forgotten women authors like Dorothy Whipple (who?) Monica Dickens, Marghanita Laski, Mollie Panter-Downes, Richmal Crompton and EM Delafield and decided she wanted to bring them out of obscurity. She has also published one of the lesser known books by Virginia Woolf, 'Flush' about Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel which was IMO worth doing. The books are interestingly presented, the covers uniformly grey, but she chooses old material and wall paper designs to have printed as endpapers. To my disappointment they are all paperback editions. It seems a great shame when she has gone to such trouble to create a beautiful copy not to go one step further and bring them out in hardback (so they become very collectable!) This way she seems to fall between two stools, making the books available but still expensive for a paperback.

Nice to be able to have one's own publishing house. She has a choice outlet in Lamb's Conduit Street W1 which guarantees a certain sort of clienetele.

Helpful and interesting customers.

Today the Burns expert came in for the second time. I presume that in between times he has checked the internet and discovered my prices to be reasonable. He had also put in his bag a book to swop with me for his purchases. Grrr! That won't pay the bills. However, he had chosen enough titles to make it acceptable instead of discount. Whilst he was browsing he also took time to tell me about books I had priced too high and others that were too low in his opinion. It was worth checking out so I did once he had left, but I've stood by my initial decision in all cases. On the whole I was happy to have his opinion. He gave it in a spirit of helpfulness and he does know his Burns literature. He had also known the ex-owner of some of the books, the few remaining from a wonderful collection I got last year after the chap had died.

Customers are almost always worth listening to. Last week a man came in to talk about the cover of a sailing book I had in the window. He knew the photographer, the precise time it was taken (at midnight just off the coast of Norway in the moment that the New Year fires were lit.) He knew the men in the boat silhouetted against the golden rays of the northern midnight sun and a story about one of the hapless sailors who had fallen overboard when he went on deck to have a pee. The story had a happy ending.

Today a lady bought some children's books and told me that her daughter illustrated two of the Brent-Dyer Chalet School copies I have on the shelf.

All these pieces of information make the books feel like living beings.

A little bit of what you fancy.... and etc.

It's been another of those weeks. If I can't find anything cheerful, or at least half-way interesting to say I'd rather not say it, so I have said nothing in this place. I have been busy listing books and can proudly claim to have taken my total on Amazon up by 200. The megalisters with their barcode scanners probably put that number on in an hour but doing it the hard way and checking prices on more than one site I think I did really well in three days. I wasn't interrupted much by customers.

Today I got my few hours off and went down to Findhorn again. Staring glassily across the bay as I drank coffee and fiddled with carrot cake I listened in to the conversations around me. The three people to my left were from the Midlands and every other word was 'bloody.' They were grumbling about life, the universe and everything, in a constant whine of negativity which rather put a damper on my spirits. The moment came for them to leave and the woman rose with a sigh: 'Eh, that were lovely,' she said.

I hope they didn't notice the stunned expression on my face.

Two young Americans have just boosted the High Street score. Bless them. Happily Amazon has picked up again for me (it's that peristalsis thing) and also ebay has come up trumps to my surprise. Better put some more effort in there.

This is boring. I am getting boring. I bore myself. I see my daughter and my ex glaze over when I start talking trade - again. The only person I can exchange gloom notes with is the nice young woman who runs the ethnic gift shop. She also is experiencing a disheartening lack of custom and she also gets paranoid. In her case she thinks she must have said something wrong when they leave without buying. I just assume my stock is rubbish.

I've started having a glass or two of wine in the evening again to cheer myself up. I shall get fatter and make myself even gloomier.

This time last year I was invited to find other booksellling folk to fill an empty shop in Nairn High Street during the Nairn Book & Arts festival. It worked out very well for me but not so good for Bryn and Jane, although they were quite cheery about it. They had had to make two journeys to install themselves and to pick up, but between whiles their stall was minded for them by the two of us living close by. Tony (who has moved down to the Lake District) also did well, and I suppose the other couple from further north did too. (I didn't enjoy working with them much because they were so pushy. The woman almost grabbed people who were just glancing in the door and generally did the F.A.R.T.S. thing in a big way. It's daft. People visibly recoil. Especially as they are both on the scruffy side. They lowered the tone I thought, snobbishly. This pair have asked to join the book sellers association. There were cries of 'OH NO!" from the members who know them, but kind Hilary, in her role as treasurer, firmly reminded us that we are NOT snobs and are open to all who've been trading two years and can pay the joining fee.)

Back to the issue of this years' Festival: We haven't been invited. Probably because there are no empty shops, but maybe also because we were competition for the book shop already in the High Street (although it sells new books, not secondhand.) At the moment I am rather wishing they would invite me. I need a boost in income.

M called in Tuesday. Prompted by his questions I caught him up with the latest on Mr. Toad. "I very nearly called in at Logie on my way down," he remarked, "But I though better of it. I'm in a good mood and on holiday and I always come away from that place feeling depressed, even though I like seeing G, an old friend of mine. Well, now I know why I felt extra repelled by it today. " Mr. Toad may not be there yet, although from RU's remarks it seems likely he is, but he will certainly be back soon needing a billet.

M then went on to tell me that as they drove home after our fireside meeting in February, his wife told him she too thinks Mr T is evil, and that he reminds her of the sort of men who groom young people in order to have their wicked way with them. Mr T grooms women who will then look after him and fund his book buying habits. The paedaphiles justify themselves by saying the children love them and want their attentions. Mr T justifies himself by saying the women do what they want and can always say 'No.'

I have made some headway on my murder mystery in which he has the starring role: the corpse.

The following will be discussed:

Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a mental disorder defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: "The essential feature for the diagnosis is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood."[1] Deceit and manipulation are considered essential features of the disorder.

Diagnostic criteria
Three or more of the following are required:[1]
1 Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.
2 Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3 Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4 Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
5 Reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6 Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
7 Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.

Thunder in the air.

It's a big commitment opening a shop. Probably if I had stopped to think about it in that way I wouldn't have done it, and most of the time it doesn't weigh too heavy even after four years, but I am getting more aware of it as being a 'duty' and as 'earning my living' which if I had been rather more mature and sensible about the whole relationship issue I would never have had to do. I've written some stuff about this before but now seems to be the time to write more.

And as she said that a book-bearing person arrived......

...and so the day has passed and I shan't be writing about the Beginning of it All again today. That can wait for another time. I have listed 50 books, half brought in by a woman in three washing baskets and donated for free, and half brought by William the book scout. I still haven't completely got to the truth about what William does. He is elderly and well-heeled and talks about 'clearing out the cottages when folk leave.' I thought he meant the tourists but now am getting a picture of William as a buyer-up of cottages which he then lets to holidaying tourists. In that case it explains why the quality of books is so good. I did think it was surprising that people would leave behind so many fine and useful titles but if they have died - well they didn't have much option! The end result is the same whatever he does: he brings me some interesting books. Todays' were very good.

The freebies weren't bad either, mostly New Age, mostly titles that haven't fallen to the megalisters. But - but - I am left with a very good selection of hardback copies all in German. About 20 all in excellent condition. Not so good! I can't list them on Amazon and have nowhere to put a German language section in the shop. I shall have to find another way of moving them on.

For 15 minutes I spoke French with a man called Charles. I THINK we understood each other. It comes back, but patchily.

I am out of sorts. It's the weather. It feels thundery. It makes me feel thundery. And ominous.

We've decided it's the barometric pressure.....

50p & a headache...

is what I've achieved today. There's still half an hour to go but I don't think much will change. To be fair I haven't been at my seat for much of the time; Sandy has been having a major wobbly since the early hours, didn't go to school, and that has distracted both his poor mother and me. Maybe the weather is changing. It was beautiful earlier but now has lost it's freshness and is heavy. The shop is on the shady side of the street for which I am immensely grateful, but the heaviness is on both sides. Chloe has a tension backache and I have a tension headache. Sandy just feels a bit sad. I will probably make my headache worse with some wine in a minute.

There have been a couple of 'nearly' sales but nothing has come to fruition. A German printer came in and instructed me in the fine art of paper. Disgraceful to admit I had no idea that paper had a grain! Books bound with the grain in the wrong direction go curly and are unpleasant to read, according to him. He managed to suggest that British printing isn't up to much, and then moved on to criticise British education. I can't help thinking of how many Germans there are living here who are constantly critical of British standards. With reason in many cases I am sure, German workmanship and thoroughness is famous, but - if it's so good over there.. do I need to continue?

Many of the British, who moved into Brussels in 1973, especially the wives who were just following their husbands, where just the same. Not me. I was full of praise for just about everything, especially the food, and got really p**d off with the grisslers. Most of them stayed on long after I left so I suppose they finally noticed what was good.

Short Shrift

Oh, I get it. Shrift. To Shrive. To be shriven of sins. After Confession a penance would be given to be performed before one could be forgiven ones' sins.

"In the 17th century, criminals were sent to the scaffold immediately after sentencing and only had time for a 'short shrift' before being hanged."

But it doesn't seem to have been widely used and it's coinage was attributed to the bard himself in Richard 111

RATCLIFF:
'Dispatch, my lord; the duke would be at dinner:
Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.'

Hand over fist

The first source I looked at claims it is of naval origin and refers to the pulling in of ropes, or climbing ropes. I'm not convinced. But it does say this - which sounds better:

"The 'making money hand over fist' figurative use is a clear allusion to grabbing handfuls of money and pocketing it. This is later, but not much later, in Seba Smith's The life and writings of Major Jack Downing, 1833:

"They... clawed the money off of his table, hand over fist."

Now that's clear imagery.

Sunshine.

It's really much too nice to be sitting inside in electric light. The shop seems dark and stuffy. I am tempted to close and take my grandson to the beach. There is only one person who will miss the shop today I fear and that's William, my self-appointed book scout who has promised me books about the Highlands and Islands. I have my fingers crossed that they will be good ones because the Scottish stock is a bit low and the summer visitors usually make for that section.

I'm thinking enviously of Bryn in Ballater which Jane tells me was 'heaving' on Saturday. How nice to have a bookshop on a heaving High Street with no charity shops to distract.

Oh well. They are much too far inland for my taste. So there.

Three phone calls today, the first was a chap trying to place a bet. The second was from the Small Business Association who ring me every year and sound surprised when I tell them that I am NOT a new business but have survived x years without their aid. I am just one Small B that doesn't wish to join them. When the agent came touting for my membership the year I WAS new he was so negative about the position of small business and all the 'thems' who are out to get 'us' that I told him, tersely, I wasn't interested. He more or less threatened me with doom simply for refusing to join - I would have the tax man coming down on me and ruining me before the year was out. Well, that hasn't happened and this years' hiccup was entirely my own fault which HM taxes - 'they' - have been really calming about. This year I am prepared to receive a visit from the SBA again because it feels about time I got a card processing machine and they give one out with the subscription. Still, if he is as aggressively proselytising paranoia as the first one he will get short shrift.

What IS short shrift? Something to look up. I still haven't discovered how the phrase 'hand over fist' came about. It seems to have no logic and I cannot imagine a source.

Two books have gone to Australia this week. The first would have cost me so much to insure and have signed for that it has gone airmail and that's that. I decided to take the consequences. If it is insured and has to be signed for it will be more desirable to thieves anyway. Coming from a bookshop hopefully will make them less interested so I make that clear. Life's a gamble. Even if I am not an official Bookie.

The marina is fairly new and the number of power boats is growing. I'm really sad about that but everyone is entitled to enjoy this natural perfection - I suppose.

Putting photographs on here is like putting a few house plants around the place. They freshen it up. Yachts at anchor on calm water - nothing much new in that, but it was my hour out of the shop away from books in the sunshine on the sort of day when the sky and the sea seem to meet and meld.

Gorse.

Gorse. It's everywhere. Common, grey, scruffy, painful and totally unappealing - until the flowers come, then it's heady, exotic and wonderful. Not long before I took this I bought a tin of coconut milk to make a marinade for fresh tuna. When I walked into the scent of hot gorse by the bay I could only think - why on earth do two such different species growing in such different part of the world smell so exactly the same?

I'm not expecting an answer.

Bless the customers.

Sometimes it just takes a few nice customers to restore ones faith in ones stock. This time of year as my income fades to a trickle and people waste time in their gardens (tut tut) when they could be reading, I always start to get a bit paranoid. But one man yesterday remarked that this shop reminded him what bookshops should be like and so rarely are nowadays. He was comparing it to the chains selling new books where there is never a surprise because the unsold books still on the shelves after a month or so are whipped away to be sold as remainders or pulped. My daughter worked in Waterstones. I must remember to ask her how long they get to shelf-sit before they are culled. I can remember the time when browsing a 'new' bookstore was as exciting as any secondhand shop because books stayed around. There were always a few that were of august age and a bit curly, thumbed and probably even read by the shelf lurker.

The man who just left told me quite seriously that his dream is to run a bookshop, and how lucky I am. It's good to be reminded from time to time.

Isabel Allende

So much light. I woke at 4.30, dozed till 5.30 having nightmares in which I was trying to put books up for auction on ebay but things kept going wrong, finally gave in and got up. Fought with the hose that is supposed to be rewindable but keeps coming unhinged and driving me likewise. There isn't really any need to water yet as we are having heavy haars, nearly as good as rain, but I have put in a few bedding plants that need cossetting. Whilst I was sprinkling them I noticed a hole where one of the plants with tiny little blue flowers - gentian - was earthed last Sunday. Where has it gone? I can only think some wretched bird has beautified its nest with it. Gulls will fly off with just about anything and the couple who have decided to cement their relationship by building a nest and establishing property rights on the roof I see from my bedroom skylight were tearing great chunks of moss from a neighbours' shed roof yesterday.

This has nothing to do with Isabel Allende but is working up to my breakfast time, when I sat out in the back yard with coffee and her book 'Ines of My Soul.' (Ines should have an acute accent on the 'e' and it's really annoying me that I can't do that..) Normally I hate historical novels especially C16 century, and especially anything to do with the Spaniards and their conquests - such brutal times. On the other hand I have always enjoyed Allende, each time against my expectations, so I thought I'd risk it and the risk was worth it. She is an excellent storyteller and this is an epic tale. The horrors are there in almost every page but she doesn't wallow in them, she deals with them, as does her eponymous heroine, and moves on. Ines was the only Spanish woman to accompany the conquistadors who founded Chile; she was a real character who appears in accounts of the times as the mistress of Pedro De Valdivia, but has left no writings of her own. To survive as she did she must have had the intelligence, determination, humour, strength that Allende endows her with. She must also have had in her the pioneering spirit and ambitions as strong as the men she bedded. She follows her man for love as he set out to claim the fabled riches of the New World, their blood beating with the the lust for gold and land, for founding cities and an empire and she never falters from her role as supporter and helpmeet. Ines enables Allende to express the vision and the chaos of that time, through the eyes of a woman who began her journey as an escape from the suffocating restrictions that Spanish women had to endure and travelled alone in a time when it was unheard of for a woman to do such a thing. When Pedro's affections inexplicably wane she doesn't crumble as many would have done, she accepts the circumstance and allows herself to recognise the change in her own heart so she can finally wed a man who has loved her from the shadows. As Allende paints her Ines is a warrior as valiant and hot-blooded as her lovers and their ambitions become her own, but she also has the ability to see the terrible cruelties and injustices they inflict on the indigenous peoples and her admiration grows for the Mapuche, a warrior people who love the land but have no wish or need for possessions so they always travel free. Ines, breathed back to life by Allende, is a very inspiring woman.

So different to the book I read just before that one: 'Warlock' by Wilbur Smith. Set in ancient Egypt which always has an appeal for me. Several customers had told me how good it was. I should have noted that they were all men. Smith revels in the horrors. He wallows in them even. Once begun I wanted to finish the story but had to leave out great chunks because I could see they were going to be nightmarish. That's the last time I try HIS novels.

Tuesday already.

I can't believe it's already nearly half way through the week. I've bought a few books and listed them. I've listed stock that hadn't been listed before; I have entertained visitors. Today Edward came by. He is a poet and has a book published - well I've spoken of him already. He's really a very nice chap who sounds quite public school although he only owns to having been to a private school; subtle difference. He came from Trinidad when he was six years old. When he returned for the first time a few years ago he didn't like it at all. Didn't feel at home. Certainly he has nothing of the Calypso player about him, or the limbo dancer! He is every inch an Englishman, moving in interesting literary circles, being acquainted with Radio 4 producers, other writers, journalists, University professors and etc. Useful contacts, I would have thought, for a poet. He was head-hunted recently by a member of the 'Dragon's Den' team who is about to write his autobiography. I was surprised that Edward would take on a job that will be virutally ghost writing, but he says it pays the bills nicely.

Edward was followed, coincidentally, by Kate, also a wordsmith by trade, who was having an unusually depressed day. Kate doesn't come into the shop mid week in normal circumstances and she is also a very private person who goes through her stuff alone so it was a surprise to see her and I knew she must be really down to have needed to talk. She has been translating another book by the Dutch author whose first book she translated last year; apparently it's getting her down. She is, as she says, prostituting herself to someone elses' craft. My prescription was a good walk with a notebooks and pen and time to work on her own writing away from the computer.

It seems there are lots of jobs out to be had for people who are good with words, but they aren't all very nourishing to the soul.

The slender Hun.

Heath Robinson liked drawing the slender Hun as well - but they were pictured as effete. It's a mermaid he is embarassed by. The other two are enjoying a day at the sea in Ostend, using their helmets to make sandcastles.

He made them ridiculous but not entirely unsympathetic. There's something likeably silly and boyish about them.

Wash day aboard the Zeppelin.

Not Very PC

This book by W.Heath Robinson was published in 1916. In these carefully PC days when we are mostly trying to embrace all nations and eradicate fear-driven ridicule, it's rather like peeking at a 'What The Butler Saw' on the pier, naughtily flicking through these charicatures of the 'Hun,' big bellied in their fussy Prussian uniforms with the spiked helmets. In 1916 it must have been hard to find anything to laugh about. A war that should never have happened. Sounds familiar. Not quick to learn as a species are we?

I like best the little silhouettes, especially 'The Captive.'

Sunday, sweet Sunday..

...with nothing to do. I wish. There is always too much to do here. But it's been nice so far and I feel satisfied with myself.

Sandy stayed over because he still refuses to stay with his dad over night. (He spent too many nights trying to shut out the sound of a drunken Geordie getting angry with Chloe on the mobile, or becoming actively aggressive. That stage is over now, hopefully, but it will take a while for Sandy to forget. Forgiving is easier than forgetting.) When Sandy sleeps here I wake early to get him breakfast and to bake little cakes he can take with him for his day out at the riding stable. This means that instead of mouldering in bed I am active and feel like doing something once he has left. This day I chose to go to a car boot sale, without much hope of finding any interesting books, but it's something I haven't done in a while, indeed they can only just have got started again as the weather hasn't been the sort to tempt people from their beds on a Sunday. It was a pleasant surprise to find a dozen books really worth having. At a pittance! They should make me 700% profit. Now THAT'S satisfying.

The rat catcher was there with his offerings, very neatly displayed and priced, but none of them appealed to me because I have seen them all too often. Also his prices were higher than other people who were just trying to clear out their stuff. That's the trouble with becoming semi-professional! When I could get books at 50p there was no point in paying him £1. We exchanged pleasantries and fragments of comradely thoughts about what was selling well and what only fit for the tip. I have to admit that I admire him. He knows many of his regular customers by now and they ask him to look out for books for them. He has made an arrangement with most of the charity shops in town here to look through their books and take the ones they don't sell or don't want to put on the shelves. He sells them at the mart or puts them on Amazon. The remainder he sells on to another secondhand shop or takes to the recycling. To my knowledge no-one else is doing this in the area, whereas in England there are people making a business out of scooping up excess books and selling them in pallet loads to people who put them on the internet. They guarantee to have weeded out all the ones that are not suitable for Amazon,the Mills and Boone, Reader's Digest Condensed, Marks & Spencer and so on. When the possibility of selling secondhand books on Amazon opened up it spawned this secondary livelihood.

This wasn't what I intended to write about today. Something more 'OT' was what I had in mind. After the book sale I came home to do some weeding. Now this might not sound very exceptional, but it is for me. I am not a gardener and weeding is high up there on my list of tasks I dislike. This house came with quite a large garden and though it is layed out in such a way as to be the least possible trouble whilst looking pretty, it still has to be weeded. It is incredible to me how many hurtful things there are lurking out there in the undergrowth. Two hours at it and I am now stinging and itching and bleeding. I also have bruises on my knees from kneeling on stones. Probably the serious gardener would have Equiptment for all this, gloves and kneelers and so forth, but weeding, in fact any gardening, is something I have to surprise myself with so not something I spend money preparing for. It is only by accident I have a trowel. The last owner left one here. I can't tell myself I am going to do the garden twice a week, or for an hour each evening, because the part of me that really hates gardening will sabotage such a plan, whereas if I set out to do one or two other more enjoyable things and then, as if by accident, find myself weeding, well then I can keep going for a couple of hours. I have to keep my mind occupied with other things so I don't become aware of what I am up to.

Weeds are to be admired. They are intelligent - possibly more so than the in-bred garden plants. They choose to grow under shrubs that will hide them from me and make them difficult to extract. They pop up through clumps of golden thyme that I don't want to damage by rummaging for their roots. Smart little beggars they are. I am a little hazy on the difference between a weed and a potential garden flower when they are young but not as hazy as the weeds would like me to be. Today I filled a large plastic bin bag with them then poured myself a sizeable whisky and sat on the new bench to admire the (almost) weed-free first garden. Happily I can't see the other two gardens. The plot is long and narrow and has been divided into three 'rooms' with a fence or screen between each to increase shelter from the strong winds that whip up the hillside (it's on a hill)and create more areas that are as private ass possible when sitting amongst the large stone houses on either side of it. the rooms a great psychological help as I can sit in one at a time and not feel the pressure of the needs of the other two. No lawn. I despise the traditional rectangle of lawn edged with beds of flowers. It's so depressingly unimaginative. Possibly a family with children need a lawn for them to romp on but I can't think of any other good reason for it's existance. When I was about ten years old we moved from a very old (Tudor) cottage with a pretty walled garden full of old shrubs, to a new house set in a much bigger very overgrown and neglected garden. I loved the wilderness there with a passion and wept angry tears when my father cleared away the last of it for - a lawn!! A lawn offers no place for dreams.

When Nick and Danielle moved into their house up the road it was surrounded by mossy lawns and overgrown, overshadowing conifers, a half-hearted and dingy plot. They set about turning it into a wild garden with flowers that would seed themselves and appear ever year, mongst them the flowers that grow naturally in rough ground like foxgloves, campions, fire weed and granny bonnets - I have no interest in their latin names; they planted sweet scented ground cover, heathers and grasses. It has been hard work. Obviously if you are not to have a formless wilderness with all the flowers choked by couch grass it has to be a conrolled wild garden - a paradox. Eight years later they have what they envisioned and each year it becomes more beautiful with a pond which a heron visits regularly. My garden was designed to be much the same but on a smaller scale, and without the pond. I just have the dish in front of True Thomas for the birds to drink and bathe in. It has come on a long way already and I have some nice ground covers in place, but the wild strawberry is a bit out of hand. It will give me bowl-fulls of the delicious little berries (especially the white ones are good) but it does want to rule over all so there will have to be a cull.

Once the bag was full I sat with my whisky on the new bench and thought how peaceful it all is out there, although I am in the middle of a High Street. A blackbird was singing. A dog was barking (there's always one, although it isn't always the same voice.) Sparrows chittering amongst themselves; some deep-throated wood pigeons sounding almost like cuckoos. I've only ever heard a cuckoo once in this part of the world and I believe they are getting scarce everywhere, but the shroo-coo of the pigeons are a good substitute. There were gulls overhead but for the time being they were silent. One harsh crow. The eucalyptus, cut down radically two years ago to the distress of my neighburs, has now achieved the 20' height it had before but more bushy rustles in the wind; a football game at the Academy was raising young pre-pubescent voices and the deeper shouts of their fathers. Traffic noise from several distant roads, worn down to a purr by the air between us. No planes because it is Sunday. On the day of rest, or the Lord's Day as it still is for some in this part of the world, the birds beasts and fishes don't get shot or snared, and the warplanes don't fly.

If I were living in silence like Nick and Danielle then the noises when they come would sound so much louder but with the constant friendly drone of life around me I am happy enough when a motor bike roars down the street, or children cry, or a lad shouts abuse at a mate.

It doesn't disturb me.

It's a tough business at times.

Well that was a difficult hour or so. The first call was to an Abbeyfields retirement home, a very nice place. It was nearly lunch time and the food smelled great. The hopeful seller met me in the entrance hall although he is nearly blind, and escorted me up in the lift asking me carefully if I minded being in a lift. He was very smartly dressed and kindly. He told me a lot about his life; he was 'in retail' in the furniture trade in Glasgow; undoubtedly he had a responsible job in marketing in a wider sense and wasn;t merely a shop assitant. He told me how he came to be in the Abbeyfield house in Nairn. Ten years ago when his wife had terminal cancer and he had suffered a stroke looking after her, their daughter had persuaded them to come further north so she could keep an eye on them. He has a large pleasant room with facilities to make a snack, ( a microwave and kettle) and an en suite bathroom. All meals take place in the communal dining room. In a household of women he is the only man, but he told me that he doesn't let them bully him! After that little exchange he put on some nice music and left me to look at his books. My heart fell somewhat because the hardbacks where Folio Society editions and whilst they can be very good theauthors where were Dickens and Thomas Hardy. I have got two complete Folio Society sets of Dickens and almost two of Hardy. They are very common; probably the special offers. The rest were paperbacks, all in good condition but a paperback is a paperback and all those undercutters on Amazon will without doubt have been chipping away at the value of these like beavers with a big dam in mind. There were a couple of books I didn't recognise because they were about Glasgow architecture and they looked hopeful, but the others where quite ordinary. It's always a risk but there were 50 books and I thought £100 was what I could offer. He immediatley, albeit politely, refused saying that they were worth more and he was sorry he had wasted my time. I didn't try to explain my reasoning, it would only have looked as if I was either arguing or being defensive. We parted friends (I hope.) On the drive to the next call I felt I wanted to write to him. At eighty five he deserves respect, which I hope I gave him, but I wondered if maybe I should have explained a little more about the book trade today and the bookdealer's rule of thumb which is, as I read it, one third of the profit on any book goes toward the upkeep of the shop (rent, rates, lighting etc. etc.) one third is for the buying of more stock; and the last is for the dealer's own use. Which means I would have been hoping to get £300 from his books, and I'm not sure that would have been possible. Most dealers will stretch a point when it comes to a book they know will sell easily; for instance I will take a 50% profit on a local book that I'm sure will sell quickly. I will also offer more or books that might sit there a while because they are expensive, but when the right buyer finds them he will be delighted. Then there are books that will be taking space on the shelves in three years time, costing money to give house room to, and they may well have to be discounted before anyone will take them.

Imagining that the next call would be better, I bounced up a very long farm track praying my exhaust wouldn't get caught on the high ridge in the middle. A nice cheerful chap, half the age of the elderly gentleman, but also very kindly and softly spoken, ushered me into his house. The wall of bookcases looked much more promising. I took one look at the tatty hardback set of R. L. Stevenson he thought I would want and rejected them, but started pulling out paperbacks with enthusiasm. As I started to pile them up he cleared his throat a bit nervously and said that perhaps he would have to check with other members of the family before letting certain titles go. NOW he thinks of that!! I suggested that at least I should continue to pile them up and then make an offer and he agreed that would seem to be the best way to go. When I finally made my offer he thought about it a moment and said it would be better from his point of view if I could give him the price I was offering for individual books. DOH! No, I couldn't do that. Individually price at least 100 books whilst he stood over me. As politely and calmly as possible I explained that if I had to do that I would charge him for my time.

He will consider my offer with his family and get back to me.

So once again I drove away without any books. Petrol being the price it is now I am not amused. I don't think I have ever found it so hard to buy books before. I hope this isn't the shape of things to come.

Happily Chloe gave me some treatment on my back and now I am well-balanced and floating on air, disposed to forget the whole interlude and start again afresh tomorrow. The chap with the farm track can find an alternative placement for his books.

The Circles of Hell

Nine Circles of Hell.

1 Limbo.

‘Here reside the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, though not sinful, did not accept Christ. Here also reside those who, if they lived before the coming of Christ, did not pay fitting homage to their respective deity.’

In bookseller terminology this means those who browse but do not buy; those who browse only to find the value of their own books; those who browse then go to look for it in the charity shops.

‘the guiltless damned are punished by living in a deficient form of heaven. ‘

My limbo has NO books.

2. The Lustful

Taken literally this could be the place for one or two unwashed males of this parish who hang about here making lame jokes and suggesting I go for a drink with them. Taken less literally it’s the covetous book collectors who try to get me to lower my prices just for them by fair means or foul; or the sellers of very ordinary books who bridle in outrage at my offer.

‘These souls are blown about to and fro by a violent storm, without hope of rest. This symbolises the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly.’

Quite so.

3. Gluttons.

Literally: people who bring food into the shop, either in greasy paper bags to eat later or half-eaten as they stuff in the last mouthfuls. The mothers who give their children a crumbly cake just before entering ( There was one in yesterday. I’m still finding the crumbs.)
Especially I shall enjoy consigning to this circle the mother who gave her teenage children a picnic each to bring in whilst browsing (see a much earlier post.)

Less literally and I think it’s for the more extreme cases from circle 3 (or persistent offenders from that circle.)

They are forced to lie in a vile slush made by freezing rain, black snow, and hail. This symbolises the garbage that the gluttons made of their lives on earth, slavering over food.

4.Avarice

(I can’t help feeling Dante was lacking in imagination. These earlier circles are a bit repetitive.)

‘Those whose concern for material goods deviated from the desired mean are punished in this circle. They include the avaricious or miserly, who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them.’

This is obviously for those who decline to part with the books I would really like for my shelves, and for the booksellers who don’t offer me enough discount (or have priced too high in the first place.) It is also for the people who have had good books in their possession and maltreated them by leaving them lying about face down with the spine broken open. Or by mending them with cellotape or taping in the dustjackets (see previous pst) or annotating them, or inscribing them with long emotional paragraphs to the recipeint, or writing notes to themselves and making shopping lists on the rear pastedown.

5. The Wrathful and the Slothful.

Hmmm. I have his name.......

I will add to this circle the Amazon listers who clog up a listing with Guild books or Reader’s Digest books, or any book that is not exactly the same as the description given. They could, if not so slothful, create their own listings and leave it an easier place for the potential buyers to find what they want.

They are condemned to lie gurgling in the waters of the River Styx or to fight each other on its surface. Quite right too.

6. The Heretics

These are, of course, the iconoclasts who go round opining that the book has had its day. That it will be replaced by DVD’s and ebooks on Palm Readers, (or whatever the newest gizmo is called. )

It is also the place for the price undercutters on Amazon who devalue my stock daily, especially the mega-listers with their automatic price-undercutting software.

I have to go buy some books so the other circles will have to wait to be filled up later.