The Aardvark Blog

Car Boot fully booked, looks like a glorious weekend
29/05/2021

We are soooo looking forward to our first Aardvark event of the year - the Aardvark May Bank Holiday Car Boot - which starts at 9am tomorrow morning. As ever parking and entrance are free and again we have the added joy of Jack Brett playing live music for us. Can't wait. I will be on car park duty again so I hope to see some of you as you arrive.

After the appalling weather of the first May Bank Holiday Weekend things are looking much better this time. We will again be open on Bank Holiday Monday and if you miss the car boot why not pop in then. Some sections of the shop are fuller than they have ever been ( we have the best range of serious cookery books we have ever had), and there are thousands of books waiting for gaps to appear so that they can come into the bookshop. WIth the prospect of a couple of house clearances in the next month or so, I am certainly not short of stock.

SInce I am working all Bank Holiday weekend I took Thursday off and I finished the new Michael Lewis book Premonition (click on title). If you have any curiousity at all about the events of the last 18 months or so this is a must read (I admit that I have some sympathy for those who would rather not think about Covid any more). Lewis has a brilliant ability to create a compelling narrative, and the conclusions he reaches have implications for all of us living in western democracies. Can't wait for the movie.

Last weekend we went up to London to visit a very sick friend and I was struck by how much seemed to be back to normal there. Most people were not wearing masks on the streets, and traffic levels seemed to be almost back to pre-pandemic levels. We walked along the river bank at Kew and there were people running and cycling past us, whilst on the Thames boats floated past.The last year or so could have been all a dream. Let us hope that the mood doesn't darken over the next few weeks. I for one am looking forward to the end of mask wearing and social distancing, so it will be a cruel blow if freedom is taken away from us. Still, I remain with those who would rather anything other than another lockdown, so I will just need to learn to be patient.

One touching thing has been the number of customers who have come up to me since we re-opened and said some variant of ' we are so glad to be back' . Before the pandemic I hadn't really realised how important we have become to so many people. A really humbling realisation. Yesterday the shop and café were busy all day, and I didn't get a chance to think until we got into the car at 6pm (sometimes it takes that long to carry out the end of day processes now!) Last week, a couple who have been weekly regulars for some years came back into the café and it was really nice to catch up with them - they had had their own difficulties over the last six months, but were as cheerful as ever. Such interactions are the reason why many of us became booksellers.

I hope that this weekend's event is the first of many, and that up and down the country bookshops can begin to emerge from the darkness and go back to introducing great books to their customers in person.

Sheridan

PS Bryan's Ground outside of Presteigne is open for the last time ever this weekend. DO NOT MISS IT!