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.