Remember her?

Here's one for Chillsider, the sculptress responsible for the head which has travelled through many years and lived with me in many, many houses.

Now you see it....

....now you don't. Not the church. It remains, no longer warmed by the pink of early morning sky which was the effect I was trying to catch with the photo. What has changed in the hour or two since I took it is the row of flowers. They have gone! UNBELIEVABLE! The council truck came, they were dug up and slung in the back. WHY???? This is the first year I have really liked the display opposite. They filled out nicely and have looked pretty.

I would prefer to think that they have been saved from the oncoming frosts and will reappear somewhere next year. Is that too much to hope for?

Red sky in the morning...

.....shepherd's warning. There's always someone who has a new-to-me slant on these old saws. To me a beautiful sky like this at 6.30am means rain later. Rain = bad in my book therefore a warning to the shepherds of bad weather to come. Not so, says the other school of thought. Red sky means no rain - and harder birthing. For some reason that isn't reasonable to me (but then I know less than nothing about animal husbandry) rain makes birthing lambs easier for the mothers. Is it a lubricant??

Whatever. It was a beautiful sky.

P.S. Five hours later. It is pouring with rain!!

You know it's autumn when...

...you find yourself in the queue for a dose of the latest 'flu virus. Surrounded by soft Scottish voices and fields of grey curls I shuffled my way forward to get a little prick (well we've all had one of those!) Then instant coffee and a shortbread biscuit whilst the moment passed for any nasty reaction like anaphylactic shock. I missed the ritual last year, didn't get 'flu, but it's always better to go for the insurance even if it's more in the mind than a reality. Today I feel a bit sick and have a painful arm. Happily it's my day off and I can use it as an excuse for doing absolutely nothing. Once upon a time they fervently denied that it would give us 'flu; the story has changed somewhat; we may experience aching limbs and a rise in temperature for a few days. In short - 'flu.

(A raise or a rise in temperature? I'm unclear about transitive and intransitive verbs to this day!)

The queue was very cheery and matey. Everybody except me seemed to know everybody else but as they were talking all around, greeting each other from their various positions ahead or behind me, I was necessarily included in the wails about weather, roadworks, new traffic lights and the closeness of Christmas. Never once was the collapsing economy mentioned. Probably nobody ever talked about the war much when it was happening either. The daily round is what counts. It's soothingly normal.

Thinking about viral matters reminds me that on my way to Aberdeen last week I listened to Radio 4 and a young woman waxing enthusiastic about bacteria. She is really absorbed by her work, loves the 'old friends' she might find under the microsope and is excited by the prospect of new friends who could show up at any time. It's unfortunate that some of her friends, even the pretty ones, are quite virulent and kill their hosts. Not their fault really; they fight for survival like the rest of us.

Hmm! I suppose that could be said of Mr Toad too who continues on his pathogenic way. I have to find another name for him. The harmless toad-creature just doesn't deserve to carry the burden any longer.

'The composition is much better...

..in the old books' remarked a customer buying one of the local authors, Maurice Walsh. The customer is my age - maybe a bit older, although that impression could come from her style of dress and hair-do which are both very old fashioned, like her taste in books.

I don't agree with her (I tried reading Walsh once and he bored me to tears) but I do understand her. Why do I like some fictional books better than others? Because I like the world they create for me to live in. The style of the old stories (I haven't heard the word 'composition' used this way since I was at school myself) carries with it the ethos of the age it was written in. Walsh also sets many of his tales in ths part of the world and if they aren't set here the places he travels to are made to sound so similar as to be quite safe. It's reassuring. His stories are slight, the atmosphere - well in truth I can't remember it as anything but dull. On the other hand I am happy enough occasionally to read the books of Alexander McCall Smith. So the setting doesn't entirely explain why I fail to bond with Walsh, Buchan or Gunn. The writers that make the Scots feel cosy.

This interests me. Is it the style or is it the place? I've never read Lillian Beckwith - I just assumed she was a Scottish 'Miss Read' and dismissed her. Last week a lady bought one saying how much she likes them but that she supposed I wouldn't understand them because they are Scottish. The irony of this is that Beckwith was English and is thought by some Scots to be - well let me use the words of a Scottish Amazon seller: ' a ghastly, condescending Englishwoman.'

It's all in the eye of the beholder then.

When all's said and done...

Where do these phrases come from? Why does every language have some form of throat clearing to begin statements. In French it's 'Enfin!" or "Ecoute!" The young begin with 'Basically.." until I could smack them. Or the even worse "Like..."

This rambling preambling is a prelude to a proclamation: I am not a true bookseller. The phrase "When all's said and done' has been popping into my head recently, followed invariably by the thought that when all is said and done I am not a born antiquarian bookseller. Daft. Who IS born a bookseller? What do I mean by 'bookseller' in this context? Define bookseller. A seller of books. I am certainly that at the moment (occasionally anyway!) What I am NOT is an enthusiastic pursuer or seeker out of secondhand and antiquarian books to sell to others. I love books. I want to buy them for myself. I don't much care if other people find the books THEY want, although it has been a good enough way to make a living for a while. I don't even care if the books I buy for myself are first editions as long as they are in nice bindings, on good paper with a good clear type face. I like Penguins too so I'm not going to obsess about hardbacks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not insensible to the history of a book. When I come across a first edition of Virginia Woolf's work published by the Hogarth Press, the cover designed by her sister Vanessa Bell, I feel I have in my hand a direct link to significant events and figures in the life of that exceptional, gifted, troubled lady. On the other hand I don't give a tinker's cuss about the different editions of Scott or Burns.

A pre-17th century book could give me a thrill as long as it wasn't a religious tract (so many of them are.) A grimoire or a book of animal husbandry or a medical textbook or a novel (unusual, I haven't yet handled a copy of Gilgamesh, an original Chaucer or the Satyricon!) would certainly get the juices going, but how often do I come across them? Topographical accounts, lore, legend or historical accounts - well, OK.

I am not spurred on by the thrill of the chase any more - the possibility of something rare turning up in the next box. It IS a bit like panning for gold and just as hard to stop when the next sieve might hold the nugget.

It would be lovely to own a case full of beautiful bindings, on the other hand I think I'd rather have a Lalique lampshade casting beautiful colours across the pages of the pleasant, servicable book I'm reading entirely for its content.

Frabjous day!

The last customer into the shop was loking for novels with angels and demons in them (but not written by Dan Brown.) A bit more questionning brought out the horrid truth: She normally shops in Christian bookshops and has read the whole of the 'Left Behind' series. She liked them. I was treated to an account of how it will be when the faithful are taken. A rather kindly woman at heart she emphasised the danger so I would get the message and be saved in time. I had to walk away.

OK Now I'm back in my defensive stance against religion. Sorry Merrily.