1. The jeweller shows us deep green stones that I think are emeralds. She puts me right -- they are tsavorite, a sort of garnet.
2. We go to Nick's favourite shop to choose him a Christmas present. The owner laughs at us, and tells me the story of the wife who came in and said: 'I'd like a book about a type of aeroplane called a Spitfire. Have you ever heard of it?'
3. He looks down at his plate and says: 'It never fails to amaze me how you can take some leftovers that have been hanging around in the fridge for half a week and a few old vegetables and make a wonderful meal.'
If it's the shop I'm thinking of, it would have been like going into a green grocers and saying : "I'm looking for something called a cabbage. Have you got any?"
ReplyDeleteOnce, when Waterstones was a young shop I went to the one in Bath and asked the man behind the counter if he had a book about a big man who wasn't. I couldn't remember teh title but he knew it was Little Bigman by Berger and took me straight to the shelf.
ReplyDeleteSadly Waterstones is more like a supermarket these days, so thank goodness for good shops, spitfires and cabbages.
Pretty much. He said that in two minutes he got her a pile three feet high of books ranging in price from £9 to £65.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that she thought her husband's passion was strange and incomprehensible and obscure; and so she assumed everyone else would, too.