The Diary of a Bookseller

SATURDAY, 3 MAY

Online orders: 4

Books found: 4

There was no sound of activity from downstairs at 8.30 a.m., so I went down and opened the shop. Nicky was still fast asleep. Twigger, Nicky and I were all suffering this morning after last night’s Whisky Supper.

After lunch I drove to Dumfries with Anna to pick up her friend Lola. Lola works in the film industry and, like Anna, is an American living in London. She is a slight woman with dark hair, and very witty. Anna introduced her to her friend Diana, another American expat living in London, and also in the film business. Diana and Lola have started a production company and are keen to turn Anna’s book into a feature film. We stopped at Threave Castle on the way home. The castle is on an island in the middle of the River Dee, and access is via a small boat with an outboard motor. It was the seat of the ‘Black’ earls of Douglas and was built in the fourteenth century by a man who delighted in the name of Archibald the Grim, Lord of Galloway. It is an impressive fortification and was clearly designed as such, rather than as a luxurious home.

By the time we arrived home Alex (my brother-in-law) had arrived in preparation for his talk at 6 p.m. on building a new whisky distillery. Alex works for a company called Adelphi. When the business started, their strategy was to buy up casks of rare malts from distilleries, bottle it and sell it under their own label. His boss decided, though, that it would be worth producing their own whisky, so they’ve built a distillery in Ardnamurchan, the most westerly point on the British mainland. For someone who appears quite shy, Alex’s talk was superb. In fact, by any standards it was extremely good, made even better by the frequent samples of whisky that he liberally handed out.

Till total £417.57

28 customers