Monsoon’s tech support finally contacted us and managed to take over the computer and fix the problems.
Till total £268
27 customers
WEDNESDAY, 23 JULY
Online orders: 13
Books found: 9
Laurie in. Yet another stunning, sunny day.
I wandered down for a haircut at 10.45 a.m. Richard was, as always, friendly and chatty. As I was leaving, I met Mr Deacon coming in for whatever treatment he has applied to his comb-over. He faintly acknowledged me in a slightly confused fashion. Perhaps out of the context of the shop he couldn’t place me.
Laurie managed to locate and pack all but four of the books that have been ordered since Friday. We had several angry emails and telephone calls about books that were ordered at the start of the month and still have not arrived. There might be a shipping problem with Historic Newspapers, so I will look into it.
Historic Newspapers is a local business that ships old newspapers around the world, and consequently they have a very favourable contract with a courier, DHL, so we put all our overseas orders through them. They drop in twice a week and pick up any parcels we have for non-UK customers.
After lunch I drove to Carsluith again to look at more of the books belonging to the woman with a weeping leg sore. She is slowly clearing her stuff out, and there was a lot of good Folio Society material – one box worth. Gave her £55 towards her grand-daughter’s Oxford fund.
After work I went for a swim in the sea at Monreith with Maltese Tracy.
Till total £236.49
16 customers
THURSDAY, 24 JULY
Online orders: 5
Books found: 3
Laurie opened the shop on what was the hottest day of the year so far: the garden thermometer read 29 degrees.
As we were putting books on the shelves, a couple came into the shop. The wife mauled her way through the antiquarian shelves, coughing and moaning, while he looked at books in the Scottish room. The moment he joined her, she complained loudly about having a headache, catarrh and sore knees. When she finally stopped talking, he offered her some sort of homeopathic crystal to cure her headache. Despite being remarkably annoying, they spent £250 on an eighteenth-century Scottish botanical book.
Laurie organised the collection of four boxes for sale through FBA. They will be delivered to the Amazon warehouse in Dunfermline, and sold and shipped directly through Amazon.
Possibly triggered by our brief encounter in the doorway of the barber’s yesterday, Mr Deacon dropped in and ordered a copy of Alison Weir’s Eleanor of Aquitaine. He looked suspicious when Laurie took his order, slightly as I suspect the character of Mr Pumpherston did in The Intimate Thoughts of John Baxter, Bookseller, in which Alec, the young apprentice, serves him instead of Baxter himself: ‘I think he would admit he has his doubts about that young shaver’, although, unlike Alec, Laurie is perfectly competent to deal with any customer.
Laurie and I spent the rest of the day packing and labelling books for the Random Book Club. Two subscribers failed to renew for another year. After we had finished with the Random Book Club I asked Laurie to sweep up the shop window. It was like a furnace in the summer sun.
Till total £449.99
16 customers
FRIDAY, 25 JULY
Online orders: 5
Books found: 5
Nicky was in the shop today. She spent the day dealing with the postage for the random books, a job that she particularly dislikes, and which I endeavour to ensure falls to her every month.
Just before closing, a customer brought in two large framed maps of Ayrshire, hand-coloured and dating from 1828. I gave her £60 each for them.
Till total £369.50
17 customers
SATURDAY, 26 JULY
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Nicky was up early tidying the shop – a significant reversal of her usual work-time activities, which largely comprise making as much of a mess as she possibly can. She asked me to find her an excuse to escape if Smelly Kelly came in to continue his Brut 33-scented wooing. Unsurprisingly, on seeing her blue minibus parked opposite the shop, he pitched up at about 11 a.m. I pretended that I had a parcel to collect from the post office in Newton Stewart and asked Nicky if she would mind picking it up for me, to which she readily agreed. Smelly Kelly then asked if she could give him a lift there as he wanted to visit his brother, at which point there was no option but to fall on my sword and tell Nicky that I would go to Newton Stewart, taking Smelly Kelly with me, if she could cover the shop. The journey was horrendous; the air in the cab of the van was barely breathable so dense was the cloud of Brut 33, even with all the windows open.
At 3 p.m. Mr Deacon appeared to inquire about his order. I told him that it should be here next week. He was clutching a tin of cat food.
Nicky and I spent the afternoon clearing out the van and tidying it up for Vincent to drive it to Inverary tomorrow. I dropped it off at Vincent’s at 4 p.m.
Nicky has decided that she and her friend Morag are going to the Edinburgh Book Festival and intend to promote the Random Book Club. She has instructed me to produce business cards and flyers by Thursday.
Till total £367.46
13 customers
MONDAY, 28 JULY
Online orders: 6
Books found: 3
Laurie was off today, so I was alone in the shop. Vincent telephoned to tell me that the new van is here whenever I want to pick it up.
When I took the mail sacks over to the post office, Wilma asked how things were going with Anna. William overheard and muttered something unpleasant.
On Nicky’s instructions, I spent an hour or two designing Random Book Club promotional material for her to take to the Edinburgh Book Festival. After lunch I emailed it to J&B Print in Newton Stewart with a note that it needs to be ready for Thursday.
After work I picked up the new van from Vincent. It is silver with built-in satnav, electric windows and a tow bar, and much fancier than the old red one. It has a saltire flag on the back door, which should infuriate my pro-union mother.
Till total £434.44
39 customers
TUESDAY, 29 JULY
Online orders: 4
Books found: 4
Laurie made it in today. Apparently her dog has a punctured eye. The drama of her domestic menagerie continues. The kittens are doing well, though, apparently.
Amazon order for a book called The Reforming of Dangerous and Useless Horses. I ought to have sent this to my cousin Aoife, all of whose horses appear to fall into both categories.
Mr Deacon’s book arrived, so I left a message on his voicemail.
Till total £341.48
33 customers
WEDNESDAY, 30 JULY
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Laurie was in today, which was largely a cloudy day.
Drove to North Berwick to look at a collection of books on Catholicism in a beautiful Georgian town house. Gave the man – a tall man, so wordless that I began to suspect that he may have belonged to a silent order – £200 for five boxes of them, then drove to Eyemouth and found a hotel to stay in.
Till total £541.90
44 customers
THURSDAY, 31 JULY
Online orders: 3
Books found: 2
Laurie covered the shop. She couldn’t find one of today’s orders, which was for a book whose title was Sewage Disposal from Isolated Buildings.
After breakfast I left Eyemouth and drove to a house near Kelso, where I had arranged to look at another collection for sale. This time it was the library of an elderly man whose wife had died recently and who was moving from his bungalow into sheltered accommodation. He seemed happy to be moving, probably for the last time in his life. The bungalow was on a steep slope, and there were a dozen or so steps up to the front door. As his mobility is quite limited, I imagine that comfort is now his top priority, rather than independence. The books were both his and his late wife’s. They were a good mix of fiction and non-fiction, in fairly good condition, probably about 600 in total, including boxed Folio sets of Wodehouse, E. F. Benson and Orwell. I left with about 100 books, gave him £190 and drove home, arriving back at the shop at about 3 p.m. to be met with a customer in cheap polyester suit who asked, ‘Do you remember me? I bought a book about bowling from you five years ago.’