At the moment I’m working my way through fourteen large boxes of new Italian books, mainly children’s ones, to go into www.crystalbard.com (our Italian language bookshop), onto Amazon, a few on eBay etc. I’m on the fifth box at the moment – lots of original Geronimo Stilton, Terry Pratchett, Babar etc. In the past I’ve unpacked all the boxes to check the books, packed them up again, unpacked them to list them in my accounts, packed them up again, unpacked them to photograph them … ad nauseam. This time I’m trying to do everything at once, which is probably more efficient, but doesn’t feel it. Luckily they’re all such gorgeous books that I can just about bear it and at least, being new, they don’t need the baby wipe treatment (only for glossy paperbacks, I should add, before anyone starts scrubbing away at their antiquarian vellum with a couple of Sticky Fingers).
At the same time I’m trying to get our tiny little fairtrade/book/toyshop ready for Fairtrade Fortnight, to turn it into a proper, mildly alternative bookshop (lots of New Internationalist stuff on its way), to get all the books I’ve bought since 2004 on to the new zingy database Mart’s written for me and to get as many as possible on to Amazon, which I’ve just starting using to sell, and is working out well so far and on to Crystal Bard Books (our new online shop, again thanks to Mart) – which reminds me that I need to update it before I go to bed tonight…I might even find time to end this sentence.
Oh, and I’m helping Robbie to pour out his shaggy little soul on www.terrierdiary.com and slowly writing a truncated history of Italian literature for www.crystalbard.com, some Italian book buying guides for eBay and … really and honestly, my next book.
I’ve also got seven enormous cartons full of the engraved wooden pen boxes I designed last year (mainly saints this time), samples of which I’m carrying around in bubble wrap waiting for enough sun to photograph them well. Actually it’s been much better over the past couple of days – I cycled halfway home without any gloves on today (normally I have three pairs and still have to wiggle my fingers like a manic harpsichord player as I meander along).
Well, there we are, another ten minutes gone. What I really hated about having a proper job was spending hours, definitely hours at the very least, there on a Monday (Tuesday, Wednesday…) morning then looking at the clock and finding that it was still only a quarter to ten. The opposite is absolutely fine – the most important stuff will get done, the rest mused about in the bath… which is where I’m off to, once I just get these books sorted out….