Several years ago a friend gave me a copy of one of her favourite books: A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. It has been sitting on my pile of books to read, so I began reading it after I closed the shop.
Till total £346
26 customers
TUESDAY, 5 AUGUST
Online orders: 0
Books found: 0
Laurie and Katie were both in the shop again today. I really need to split them, as I can’t afford to pay them both. Next week they will work three days each with no overlap.
No orders today, so I suspect that there is a problem with Monsoon. I have emailed them to let them know.
Anna and Hilary left for Much Wenlock, but before they did, they told me that they want to come back with a book group and run a creative writing course in the shop in February. I warned them about the temperature. They didn’t seem to be put off. I’m not sure how it would work financially, so I suggested that they could use the house for free the first year – they seem to think that the drawing room would be an ideal venue – and if it works, we can find a way of repeating it but with a small fee for the use of the house.
Katie spent the day ordering the poetry section, which has become chaotically disorganised.
Internet stopped working at 3 p.m.
Till total £550.34
52 customers
WEDNESDAY, 6 AUGUST
Online orders: 0
Books found: 0
When I came downstairs in the morning to open the shop there was still no internet connection, so I telephoned Titan Telecom, my new supplier, who told me that I would need a new username and password. When I explained that this was a matter of urgency, as we had no orders coming through, they said that a technician would call back soon, so I left Laurie and Katie with instructions to sort it out.
It rained heavily last night, and the morning was cloudy, but it turned into a glorious day in spite of the forecast. Just as well, as it was Wigtown Show day. I spent most of the day filming sheep, cows, horses and chickens and chatting to farmers. Wigtown Show is one of the oldest agricultural shows in Scotland. It has been held annually for 200 years, and it entails marquees filled with people selling country craft things and food. There’s music and a bar and all manner of entertainment, as well as the pens full of livestock.
The Titan Telecom technician called at 3.45 p.m., and we were back online by 4 p.m., so the two sets of wages I paid the girls to list books online were, thanks to technical problems, wasted.
Laurie and Katie went to the post-cattle show party in the marquee and stayed overnight in the shop. I went to bed at about 1 a.m. and they still hadn’t come home.
Till total £386.90
43 customers
THURSDAY, 7 AUGUST
Online orders: 6
Books found: 4
Laurie was up at about 8.50 a.m., Katie at about 9.15 a.m. Both looked pretty hungover and were relatively useless all day.
Till total £337.05
28 customers
FRIDAY, 8 AUGUST
Online orders: 3
Books found: 2
I left for Ballater at 7 a.m., so Laurie opened the shop today. Nicky was at home making things to take to Edinburgh next week to help promote the Random Book Club at their book festival. She is planning to go up on Wednesday and Thursday and hand out flyers and free books, most of which – she has now told me – she just removed from the shelves of the shop without asking me.
I arrived in Ballater just before noon and found the house, a small, unattractive bungalow in a scheme of identical small, unattractive bungalows, all with fussy rose gardens. The man who greeted me at the door was small and bearded, and wearing a dressing gown and slippers. His wife was identically attired. The house was small and cluttered, and a layer of dust and grime appeared to cover every surface. The books were in several rooms throughout the house, many of them upstairs in a converted attic with a very narrow staircase leading up to it. The wife made me a cup of tea, and I worked my way through the collection while they watched television. They were friendly enough but didn’t appear to want to chat. The books were slightly disappointing – Nansen’s Farthest North in a two-volume leather-bound edition in poor condition, the Penguin edition of Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World and Admiral Evans’s South with Scott – and most of the collection was in average to poor condition. There were none of the big hitters you always hope for in a polar collection – Shackleton’s South in the first edition, or The Heart of the Antarctic in the de luxe edition, which is probably just as well as money is tight this year. After an hour or so I had amassed about six boxes of books, all about the Antarctic, and we agreed a price of £300. Both the man and his wife had been fairly uncommunicative but not unfriendly, and I had early on decided that he probably had little to say for himself, but as I was loading the boxes into the van I asked what had piqued his interest in Antarctica, at which point he became surprisingly animated. He had been part of the British Antarctic Survey in his thirties and had been there for several summers doing research. I really ought to be less dismissive of customers and people selling books.
Left Aberdeenshire at just after 1 p.m. and headed south. Home by 6 p.m.
Till total £196.98
19 customers
SATURDAY, 9 AUGUST
Online orders: 4
Books found: 4
Nicky was in the shop today, a glorious sunny day. I’m off for a few days’ fishing next week, so we discussed the various jobs that need to be done in my absence. I have little or no confidence that she absorbed any of the information and expect that she will do exactly as she pleases while I am away.
As Nicky was leaving, someone on a mobility scooter almost ran her down on the pavement. Initially I thought it might have been Andy, who bought hers a few weeks ago. As I was musing at the irony of her being run over by her own mobility scooter, she came back into the shop to collect her hat, which she had left in a corner somewhere. I asked her if she had seen Andy lately, as I hadn’t seen him for quite a while. She replied with the casual indifference that is the preserve of those who believe that death is the beginning rather than the end, ‘He died last week.’
Till total £336.87
25 customers
SUNDAY, 10 AUGUST
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Drove up to Lairg for three days’ fishing with friends Frederick and Fenella and the other guests they’d invited. The A9 is a tortuous road, particularly when you are on your own, as there is no radio signal for much of it. Normally, I can re-tune to long wave and listen to Test Match Special, but England beat India with a day to spare yesterday, so I was denied even that to keep me company. It rained heavily all the way, and the forecast is for more of the same all week. Ideally for salmon-fishing a falling river is best, but it looks very much like this is not going to be likely.
This trip is a highlight of my year, and I live in perpetual fear of not being invited again – probably for my inadequate fishing (and social) skills. Frederick’s family shares the fishing rights for the River Shin and the Oykel with a number of other people, and they own a considerably extended cottage just outside Lairg. Every year for the past few years it has been my good fortune to have been invited to fish for a few days on some of the best salmon water in Scotland. By now I know most of the other people who are also invited – it changes every year – and this time, as well as Frederick’s children from his first marriage, Wilf and Daisy, the guests include Biffy, with whom I was at school for a few years, and Will, a charming man whom I hadn’t met before.