Today has been a tad tiring. I had to go into the big city or Preston as it is commonly known. What remains of my mind can't quite accept the transition from a Lancashire ex-mill town to a metropolis. It must have cost the council a fortune to rename everything from buses to letterheads and signposts. I went to donate some of my meagre pension to contribute towards a leaving present for one of my ex-work colleagues who has decided to throw in the towel in the light of the latest swingeing cuts in staffing. A furtive handover meeting was arrranged in the shadows of the main door to the office building. Although the blissfully ignorant recipient was presumably working on the 9th floor, nervous glances were still darting around. Anxiety increased when another ex-workmate appeared in the doorway - it was beginning to look like a cabal was forming.
The shady dealing concluded I bade my farewells and proceeded on to my next objective. The Christmas present from middle brother this year was a book token. Now this was not so boring or "safe" as the name implies and in any case they apparently don't call them book tokens any more - they are now "Gift" tokens. This was much appreciated as most of the books lately purchased by yours truly are from one of the local charity shops. I have taken to using the establishment as a sort of lending library, purchasing the odd book and returning it for further resale. It has the advantage of supporting Barnardos and preventing a pile up of once only read books in Chez Kojak. True, the variety can be a bit sketchy as much depends on the reading habits of others but I have acquired one or two decent hard and paperbacks. Anyway, I digress yet again. I have a motley collection of Jane Austen novels, some more dog-eared than others and I spied, on the venerable Waterstones website a sumptuous hardback compendium of 7 Jane Austens including one that I had neither read nor, I'm ashamed to admit, heard of. I entered Messrs Waterstones bookshop in Preston, gift token clutched in hand and with an air of anticipation not felt since I anticipated the fine pints of ale I would consume at the Northern Symi Reunion in Keswick. Quel shock! Fate's Literary Fickle Finger had wielded her pen. Not only did the Preston City branch not stock the all-encompassing tome but their stock of Jane Austen was pretty scrappy. In fact I could not find even a single paperback novelette. Have Waterstones no pride?, no sense or sensibility? I am confident I looked in the right place and I am secure in my alphabet. Thoughts of Austen began to waver and a sliver of persuasion (sorry, I just could not resist that) crept in that perhaps another genre might be equally rewarding. I dabble in Science Fiction occasionally and thought that Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy might be a suitable replacement. Not a hope! One rather minor paperback but not a hint of a paragraph from the first 3 novels. I have begun to think that Waterstones of Preston don't know their literary A's from their Northangers. Looking around the shop I was dismayed to see mostly popular paperbacks rather than the hardback variety. Perhaps they should be renamed Wateredownstones.
All this clumping about the big city was not without peril. Between taking evasive action to avoid mothers wielding baby buggies a la battering ram mode to almost leapfrogging over those who feel compelled to suddenly stop in busy doorways I was glad to reach the safety of the Kojakmobile. Even then my travails were not over. I had forsaken my free bus pass in favour of the car in order to combine my literary jaunt with an opportunity to stock up at a branch of Lidl conveniently situated on my way home. Perhaps too convenient as this is another shop where I invariably come out with much more than I intended to buy. There are only 2 types of shopping trolley there, large and even larger. A poor excuse I know but it's the only one I can come up with at short notice... except perhaps if I play the "green" card. It's much better for the ozone layer if I make fewer journeys and buy in bulk! Splendid! I'll use that one more frequently! Further ills assailed me in the shape of the dreaded roadworks. Blocking the only route home, unless I take to the river are major roadworks which, the notice proudly proclaims, will last for the next 15 months. 15 months! I'm sure the second runway at Manchester Airport was constructed in less time. Since the roadworks in question are confined to a traffic junction I cannot imagine why they should take so long.
My next port of call was to my friendly farmer for milk and eggs. He was, as usual, wearing a respectable coating of another bovine by-product and thus unfit to enter the dairy so it was self-service once again. Fortunately I had stocked up the car ashtray with coinage for such an event so the correct recompense was available. On my drive there I noticed that although the thick blanket of freezing fog had not lifted one iota all day it had produced some rather fetching side effects in the shape of frosted foliage. Naturally my camera was at home but I was inspired to emulate another blogger (you know who you are) and whip out my new mobile phone. Flushed with success I hurried home only to discover that, yes, you've guessed it, the miniscule instructions gave no hint that you could actually transfer the said images from phone to computer. There is a vague mention of something called Bluetooth but seemingly no software or guidance on how to do anything with it. As large parts of the mobile are still inacessible (to me at any rate) it may be Spring or Summer before they appear elsewhere... if at all...
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