Three lists

[shewhomust]

What I bought at Post Horn Books in Giggleswick:

• Vintagewise, André Simon - published in 1945 in celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Professor Saintsbury (and perhaps also to console himself for the shortage of wine in England after six years of war)


• Lady into Fox, David Garnett - a 1925 hardback, with the original woodcuts and a dust jacket in a protective sleeve. I was surprised this was a price I could afford (and more surprised still when the shopkeeper discounted my entire haul to less than the price marked on this book!)


• The Tree that Sat Down, Beverley Nichols - I haven't read this since I was a child, and was curious to know what I would make of it now. And it's a nice clean copy, first edition, with illustrations.


• King Horn, Kevin Crossley-Holland - this one's slightly tattier (though it does have a dust jacket). But Kevin Crossley-Holland. And, for that matter, Charles Keeping.

What I bought in Newcastle on Tuesday, when I went shopping for a pair of winter shoes:

• Two pairs of opaque charcoal grey tights, and two pairs of bottle green - they don't seem to make bright colours any more, or at least not in opaque, and in large sizes.


• 100g of chorizo sausage and a jar of mostarda di castagne - what can I say? I was in Fenwicks' food hall.


• a bottle of bubble bath and a chunk of spicy soap, from LUSH

What was in the mysterious package gillpolack so kindly sent all the way from Australia:

• Two tiny koala bears (with boomerangs)


• a miniature, bright red rugby ball labelled 'goodfridayappeal'


• a notebook with 'I <3 Australia' on the cover


• a keyring with an endearing but unidentified bird on it - could it be a booby? its feet are a sort of blue-grey, but it has a yellow crest. It is standing in front of my monitor, talking to a puffin.


• A pencil which is also a totem pole of snowmen.


• Three postcards with a genuine historical recipe (from the Conflux Prohibition banquet)


• a bright red and green object which has me completely baffled


• and a covering note on the headed notepaper of the Australian Uranium Export Office.

Such riches...