Beads are In and Bosoms are Out

A busy few days. We had a very satisfactory launch of Irene's book Sold to the Lady with the Lime-Green Laptop on Sunday. Anne and I manned the bookshop and by using most of our fingers, nearly always gave the right change and collected the appropriate money. And on Tuesday, we were selling again at the Guildford Farmers' Market. We had no cover, and it could have been dreadful, but, once again, we were quite lucky with the weather. It wasn't sunny like last time, but we only had a fine spattering of rain and we managed to protect the books.

Irrespective 0f how many books we sell, I quite enjoy sitting there meeting up with passers by. There were a couple of students from the Guildford drama school (the alma mater of Bill Nighy) who had only just come to Guildford from Watford and London respectively and who were enjoying it. There was the mysterious man who took away a leaflet, but didn't want a book. 'Are you a writer?' I asked. 'I might be,' came back the cautious reply. One woman came up to the stall, told us a bit about her own writing, and then remembered me from something I'd written for Writers' Forum. To my surprise, she said she had been moved by my article (which included a mention of our late friend, Esme Ashford, the writer of one of our books, On the Edge) and had cut it out and shown it to a friend. 'It is a privilege to have met you,' she told me. Much as I like to be appreciated, I'm still asking myself, if she was that impressed by my article, why wasn't she tempted to buy one of my two books, available at that very table. Answers on a postcard, please.

As I trotted up the hill, I passed by a bead shop. There's another one of these in Knaphill. This makes me think that making your own jewellery must have become fashionable, suddenly. I also pondered that women have been showing off more decolletage in the last year or so. Sometimes fashions creep up on you, in a grass roots movement - or one might say, bottom up rather than top down, except it would probably be inappropriate.

I must have been very tired on Sunday night, post launch, because on Monday morning when I woke up, I suddenly realised I could see. This was worrying - my left eye is so bad that first thing in the morning, everything is normally a blur, in spite of my only slightly short sighted right eye. I shot out of bed, and sure enough I'd left my left contact lens in. I took it out and rested my eyes for the four or five hours, before replacing them.

I had to go to a meeting in the evening, and was aware that in the darkness, the roads seemed less clear than ususal. When I got home and attempted to take out the lenses, I found to my horror that now I was only wearing the left lens. There wasn't sign of the right one. At midnight, I swept the kitchen floor, in the hope of finding the errant lens, but I could only find dust. Then I ransacked drawers to find an old right one for the next day, and until I could get a replacement.

Tomorrow I'm back to Guildford for a meeting with my graduate friends, and will be getting a present for GD2 and something for cousins who are having a party in a few weeks.