Look! LOOK!! This blog has inspired a DIORAMA! I cannot quite convey my excitement - nor the intense and lifelong gratitude I owe its creator Beverley Marshall. I fear my spontaneous hug and rapid-fire gasps of glee only made me look deranged. In fact I was merely delirious - the crucial difference lying, I think, in duration. Deranged is surely slightly more terminal whereas I, with the benefit for five hours post diorama presentation under my belt, am a deal calmer. Were we to measure this current state of emotion on a d-word scale I’d settle on ‘violent DELIGHT’. The book has actual pages! There is Fimo canalware! Pipe cleaner limbs (cunningly disguised under hand-sewn traditional garments) could ACTUALLY PICK THAT WATERING CAN UP if Mr or Mrs Book Barge so desired! Infinite dramatic possibilities! Best of all, it came sealed in a recycled plastic cylinder - a bargee biome, my own little Eden Project of towpath whimsy. Come peer at them on my desk. It’ll be like The Truman Show but SO MUCH better. Thank you Beverley!

Clearly this was more than enough excitement for a late winter’s Sunday but it kept rolling in like there was no tomorrow.* There was a wonderful man from Cornwall who visited, with grand plans for a book ship of his own! There was a gifted Sauvignon Blanc! There was the dizzying moment when I looked cross-eyed at an Excel spreadsheet of tiny numbers and realised this Feb has so far been better sales-wise than the whole of last year’s Feb - and there are still ten days left to go! A man bumped his head and apologised to me for doing so! Books were bought! CUSTOMERS! I could go home and use the word ‘bustling’ in a barge-based context! Brilliant!

In my high spirits I was wildly willy nilly with shortbread distribution. Even toddlers got some. I sometimes resent placing hardback books in their hands, never mind the finer things like Celtic biscuit perfection. As if their immature rusk-inured taste buds would ever appreciate that some people grate the butter into their dry ingredients to get such flakiness.. But I did it anyway. I didn’t care. I was happy and I had a diorama and I watched this book trailer from 2008 in the dark when everyone had gone home. It is also inspired by dioramas. I am singing its jaunty tune as I two-finger type.

* Actually, there is no tomorrow. I’m taking Monday off to try and join the Navy Reserves.