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?