As we wave goodbye to the first half of the year, I'm rather frustrated that I failed to get a second book out. Waiting on the second proof of HIGH SEAS AND HIGH ADVENTURES, I received a message from the printer saying that it was running late, along with the rest of my order (I needed a few books for stock). No revised schedule for when it will be dispatched, just "Your order is running late. We apologize that your order has not printed and shipped as quickly as we originally estimated."
With that aside, it has been a fun week, starting last Thursday with a trip down the pub for an open-air comedy gig at the Wivenhoe Funny Farm. There's a big, wooden gazebo at the back of the pub, open-sided so that people can also see the acts if they're sitting in the large tent on side or the pub garden on the other. It's a great venue if the weather is kind.
This month's acts were Jake Baker, Hazel Donovan and Robin Ince, compared by Hazel Humphreys. It might have been the longest day of the year, but the gig still managed to clash with the football as England drew against Denmark on their way to becoming one of the most disappointing success stories of the Euros — they're through to the next round but nobody seems to be happy about it. Come on, this is England we're talking about! (That's my football bants for this year.)
Our attempt to visit the pram race on Friday was a resounding failure as we started out late, weren't sure where it started from or where it ended. We figured both out, but only in the aftermath of people milling around. And it was more of a wheelbarrow race than a pram race.
Still, we took the opportunity to go and look at the gallery opening of a new exhibition featuring watercolouro art by Emma Wren and Hanna Buck, plus some ceramic by Frankie Atkinson, at The Old Grocery. I wrote about the building ten years ago – scroll down and you'll see a couple of pictures. For some years the place was empty, but it's now a little gallery and has had some very nice exhibitions over the past couple of years.
After fourteen years living in Wivenhoe, we finally managed to see the annual Regatta, with its swarm of sailing boats and a lot of stalls set up along the quays. As the nearest I've ever got to sailing is reading Swallows and Amazons, I was prepared for a disappointing hour of boating types clogging up the roads, but it turned out to be a delightful hour of everyone just having a good time in the sunshine.
There were bands, food stalls, arts and crafts stalls, drinks, clubs, a charity tombola, a first responders training class, various stalls promoting everything from the local youth football team to the Freemasons, lots of food stalls, drinks stalls, expensive ice creams (£5 for a 99!) and—the first thing I spotted—a secondhand book stall. Drawn like an object into a black hole, I promptly spent my pocket money on a few books, including a couple of British Library Crime Classics that I didn't have, and two books by Alan Villiers, whose name I recognised as a contributor to Look and Learn.
In between, I have been filling in my time doing a little write-up on a guy called Philip Shoosmith and getting to grips with the history of an old paperback publisher called Scion. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that I can put together another paperback history along the lines of the Badger one, although it will depend on what cover scans I have and what I can get. I have a feeling it might take a while as I have only a couple of handfuls rather than the 500 I had for Badger.
No time for gardener's corner... let's just say that there are now two corners and one is filling up nicely with new grass. More on that next week.
.
.jpg)
