Today I have made a start on shifting a great many books that I am hoping to sell down from the (slightly converted, not just junk and spiders) attic room to Downstairs. Long story there, I can bore you with it later if you want.
But, taking the lid off one box to decant the contents into the just-right bag - can’t make it too heavy to carry, and can just manoeuvre it past the heaving bosom within the hinges of the Klapptreppe without falling off said contraption backwards - I found a brown paper bag containing a slim volume.
This slim volume I bought about a lifetime ago as a birthday present for my father, who was staggered by it. I was a poor student at the time. edited - no, I wasn’t: I was recovering from being a poor student - I was a very broke indeed mother. Richard Booth was a slightly poorer man, because some employee had misplaced the point in the price. £7.50 not £75, at mid '80s pricing. The Man Himself honoured the marked price, which was handsome of him.
The volume: The Jubilee Book of Cricket by Prince Ranjitsinhji.
MCMI.
Soft cover, much discoloured, a name (?) illegible signed in ink on edge thereof. Pages yellowed, but otherwise in good nick. Probably still worth a bob or two.
That’s a little disappointing, suggesting I might not have got quite the bargain I thought I had all those years ago. But I wasn’t pinniing any future solvency, or even a particularly lavish tipple, on the book. Just, it’s a Pleasant Thing to redicover.
Up anddown the Deathtrappe has rediscovered certain bits in a surprising fashion. Put it another way, my bum don’t half hurt.
It’s worth more for itself and the memories… One can buy books for a lot more than one can sell them for, in my experience, so I keep the book and the memories.
Yes, my house is a bit cluttered.
I don’t go up into the not-a-bedroom-honest attic bit if I can avoid it! I would only put things up there if I did.
Ah yes. There comes a time, though, when thoughts of Moving Hovel get one up those steps. And seriously, I cannot keep All These Books. Two eaves shelves the width of the house are double parked, there are the boxed ones which I am going to try to sell, keeping only those with Associations, which take up much of the rest of the floor up there, stacked, not in a single layer… It is a mammoth undertaking. Never get the bugger up the Deathtreppe, though. Cat manages it quite well, though, and ambushed me as my head was rising, demon-king-like, from the Aperture. An ambush with nose-kisses and not claws for once, poor wee beetle, hope she’s not going down with anything.