Happy Birthday to Us, Happy Birthday to Us, Happy Birthday dear Storytellers, Inc., Happy Birthday to Us! Yes, it’s true, the bookshop is celebrating its thirteenth birthday today and while this morning has already proved to be an absolute disaster (won’t go into it but I am two hours late opening up and sans Americano) I’ll try not to let it get in the way of a fun dispatch today…
These posts will remain free, with comments open so you can send me queries like ‘any nice children’s books for Christmas?’ and ‘what about for adults?’
Two messages flashing on the shop answerphone when I get here. Oh no, which customers have I missed by my unexpected delay this morning. Perhaps they rang the shop from outside the locked door and left me a confused and angry message explaining how disappointed they were in this sort of service, what a nuisance it was going to be come back… if they ever do. Gah, I feel so guilty already! It couldn’t be helped! The circumstance was unforseen! I play the messages.
Both are my Grandma just saying “Ok, chat later, bye!”
There’s a man outside who looks like Bernie Ecclestone and he’s speaking so animatedly about a horrible train but also a lovely tea. Swings and roundabouts.
It’s a proper frosty one out there today! Shall I tell you about my layers while we wait for a customer? Uniqlo turtleneck, shirt, sheepskin waistcoast and wool shacket topper that I excitedly took off when I got here, thinking I’d save it for later, but have immediately put back on. By the way, my new waistcoast is the early Christmas present I have gifted to myself this year, but I have waited until December to wear it, because of Jesus. Expect to see it in every shop selfie from now on. Thanks to everyone who sent concerned messages about my feet, our heating bill, etc., particularly to my American readers, who should be reminded that our winters are not your winters. You’d probably still be in a t-shirt here.
A lady comes in to collect a copy of Jodie Garnish’s The Spectaculars for her daughter who read it on an award shadowing scheme and declared it to the best book ever, which feels like a decent recommendation to pass on for anyone in the market for a book for a middle grade reader who loves the theatre.
“I’ve come to right a wrong!” explains a much beloved and loyal customer (Hello!) who had a birthday earlier this week and did not receive a book.
“Is that actually just being respectful?” I offer, because people who buy a lot of books, are actually quite tricky to buy books for. She agrees that perhaps it was, but that she still deserves a book in honour of both her birthday and ours, and buys a Kate Atkinson before PRODUCING AN ENTIRE CAKE FROM HER BAG and saying Happy Birthday to Storytellers, Inc., and handing me one of her perfect lemon drizzle loaves to celebrate, which has improved the morning more than 113%. Do we have the best customers in the entire world? I couldn’t possibly say… because my mouth is full of cake.
A customer comes in to collect an order and then strikes fear into my heart by casually enquiring how much it is as I retrieve the book from the customer order shelf. Absolutely painful having to tell someone that the not-even-that-thick celebrity memoir they’ve ordered is a whopping £25, but I do. Is there a paperback? He asks, halfheartedly and I report that there is not. We exchange tuts, and he hands over the dosh and we say no more about.
Business Mum has spent the last few weeks wrapping little boxes and then cutting little doors into them and making tiny little door knobs for the doors and printing numbers for them all to create a rather marvellous new window for December, which I get to officially launch today by opening the first door in our advent display! All the glory and none of the work! Isn’t it sweet? Well done Business Mum.
And because Substack is pivoting to video (I’m joking, don’t have a heart attack!) I’ve made a little video of me opening the first door. I don’t know the first thing about making videos so apologies if this has my breathing on it. ASMR?
Ooh that reminds me - I’ve got my advent calendar to open!
(a much older man than you’d expect, excited for his little chocolate)
I’m just wondering what it would have been like if I’d started to write these receipts when we opened all of those thirteen years ago. I guess it would have been on Tumblr, and my posts would have been less ‘no customers again x’ and more ‘I’ve decided to drive round all the local schools and give them all free hour-long workshops every term in the hope that three children might eventually buy a book’ which is the sort of insane thing I used to do before I realised it was easier to just sit in the shop and drink tea.
It is a shame that I didn’t have the receipts on the day that a man brought an aubergine into the bookshop and asked us if we knew what to do with it “because we had a cookbook in the window”.
Business Mum, already hysterical, “But why have you got it?”
Him, very northern, “Someone gave it to me.”
Happy memories.
A videographer arrives to take some footage of the shop to put into a promotional video about shopping across Fylde at Christmas. ‘You don’t have to be in it!’ the note from Mum said when she told me this was happening on a day she wouldn’t be here. Fine. The videographer arrives and moves around the shop filming the shelves and window display. “Can you just be at the till…wrapping a book?” he suggests. Fine. I wrap a book. “Can we shoot you putting it into a bag?” Remember I’m wearing four tops right now, I can barely move my arms. “I’ll just film your hands in this bit.” They’re blue and I haven’t had a manicure since March. That’s a wrap!
MAN IN THE SHOP IN SHORTS.
A man comes in to ask about our shop signage and I’m a bit lacklustre because I just did the worst wrapping of my life and it was filmed and then he mentions he’s “looking at one of the vacant properties…” on the same row as us and I’m like yeah, yeah, ok, great, “…for my patisserie” at which point I perk up so much in my seat I become part meerkat, OH MY GOD THAT WOULD BE AMAZING, I say, imaging myself befriending a local pastry chef, which has been a long held ambition of mine.
As it’s our birthday weekend I’m treating you to a double bill1 of bookshop posts because I’ll be back behind the till TOMORROW. This is because Business Mum is performing all weekend in a pantomime - truly, a betrayal for a parent who raised me to believe pantomimes were awful; she never took me to one as a child and now she subjects me to them annually as an adult. I’m going to see it tomorrow night.
In the meantime, if you’d like to buy a book to celebrate our thirteenth year of bookselling, you can click on any of the links in the newsletter, or visit our shop here.
Finally, today is the first time I’ve had a months-worth of payment from Stripe - previously I had it set up to make individual payments (annoying!) so while I’ve been gently accruing a coffee here and there throughout the month, this is the first time I’ve had a little lump of a payment for my writing on Substack, and it feels very lovely to see that number look so encouraging, and so useful at this time of year. Did you know that I actually opened a bookshop so that I could be a writer? Dumbest plan ever, for the first five years all I did was sell books and wrote none. But over the past few years I’ve been prioritising my writing, which is why I’m only here in the bookshop one or two days a week. If you’re a paying subscriber to this newsletter, I just want to say another huge thank you at this point. It means so much to me. Here’s to the next thirteen years… Bookselling, Writing and Writing about Bookselling!
is this a treat? do you want this?
Patisserie sounds very interesting. For those interested, I am currently appearing in Dick Whittington as the Fairy Night Star, a glorified narrator really but I get to wear a huge pink and white blancmange of a dress, white curled wig and glorious tiara. I don’t like going to other people’s pantos, just like being in one with my mates. But yes I do now make Katie come to see mine, but my husband draws the line and refuses to indulge me. 3 shows completed, 2 more to go tomorrow.
Congratulations on 13 years, that's an incredible milestone. Bless business mum - I love her window display! Always a treat to read your receipts. xx