Shopping for books

29 November

There’s quite a hard frost out the back this morning, lucky we have no plans for going out today, a wee bit too cold methinks. Tomorrow we are hoping to go to Sheffield for a look around the Meadow Hall shopping centre. That will depend on how Jan feels later today. She’s running a high temp right now, has a sore throat and is coughing and barking badly. Add in her runny nose and she’s not feeling, or looking all that good right now, certainly not up to driving up the M1! I suppose I’ll be down with it too before long – oh the joys of winter!

 I did get a decent amount of writing done yesterday afternoon, around 1500-2000 words I think. With Jan off her feet right now I shall take the opportunity to get more done today, maybe even get the first draft done, that would be good. What I really need to do though, is to get Shipshape up on Amazon. My others are there, I’m not just doing any marketing. That is a whole new area I need to learn, and I’m not looking forward to it really. Even if I am lucky enough to get signed to one of the big six publishing houses, marketing is usually left to the writer, with the publisher letting them get on a deal with it themselves after the initial push. Oh yes, I’d like to be the next Stephen King and if you meet a writer who says they are not interested in being a big name writer, they are telling porkies my friend; we all do. For now though, I am just rather pleased the my work is ‘out there’, but I still dream the dream …

The other week Jan and I went to Brum and had a look at the new Grand Central shopping area that’s not part of New Street Station. I said the next day I was disappointed with it. I need to go back though because I didn’t see a new branch of Foyles bookshop in there. That means the city centre now has three major books shops with a few minutes’ walk of each other. There’s two Waterstones along with Foyles. As far as I can see from my searches on-line, there are now indi book shops though, apart from the small stall on the Rag Market, but that sell second hand books, not new ones. I said ‘a small stall’, and that is what I mean. It’s located in a corner stall and get three or four people in there and the place is packed. I do look in there occasionally, but it’s not a fun place to be in really.

For second hand books I rather trawl the charity shops really, of which Dorktown has a whole heap of them, fifteen on my last count I think. Brum city centre doesn’t have as far as I know. Coventry has just one that I know of. There will be more in the out-laying shopping centres I suppose. I can’t see the city bunglers … err … leaders wanting to dumb down their centres, can you? One area of Coventry that does have a number of charity shops is Ball Hill, which we used to look around fairly often but haven’t for a few years now. They are still there though, we see them every so often when we drive through. It might be time to do a trawl there again.

Somewhere else we haven’t been to in a long time is Rugby, perhaps it’s time to go there again. But when I wonder? On Thursday it’s 1 December and Dorktown will start to be crowded all day every day. I’d be surprised if Dorktown was the only place like that though. It’s all down to Christmas isn’t it, and the mad rush to buy more food than is needed, food that will either be wasted or eaten before the holiday anyway. Then Christmas Eve the supermarkets will be chocka-block again, and Boxing Day, and then we do it all again on New Year’s Eve. And don’t forget all that booze either; grief, I get hung over thinking about how much some folk buy.

Today’s photo …

A street lamp in the Royal Meuse.

Today’s funny …

How many trainspotters does it take to change a light bulb?
Three. One to change it, one to write its serial number down, and one to bring the anoraks and the flask of soup.