Lovely Customers

Some days are just a joy to be in the shop, because of all the delightful people you come into contact with.
Today there was a lady from Northern Ireland on the phone, wanting to dispose of her late husband's library. When she was told that our chief buyer is at present braving the perils of political unrest in Bangkok, she told me about a friend of hers who had also been stuck there in previous troubles, but had got out safely, and she wished the same for Stef.
Then there was a lovely old gentleman from Coventry, again on the phone. He'd been listening to a radio programme about aliens, and this had reminded him of the books of Erich von Daniken. He'd gone to the library, where they'd never heard of the author, (who firmly believed that aliens had visited Earth and left traces behind), and was delighted that I knew about him straight away - and that we had several of his books in stock.
And then there was Steve, the saddler from California, who wanted to know about interesting and beautiful historical buildings on his way round England and Wales. He said that Hay looked very like some towns he'd visited in the Ardennes region, and I told him that Hay had largely been rebuilt in the eighteenth century. He was on his way to Bristol, and wanted to know about other eighteenth century towns, so I recommended Bath. He'd also been to Stonehenge years before, and wanted to go back (although the site itself had been a bit of a disappointment), so I asked him if he'd ever heard of Avebury. Another customer said it was a wonderful place, and the sort of place that one always wanted to go back to when they'd visited, "rather like Hay-on-Wye," she said.
By this time, a French couple had joined us at the counter, and bought a couple of books. Steve said he was going to visit a tannery in the South of France after he'd been around England, to talk to them about leather for saddles. They didn't know the town he was going to, but they had been to California, and both enjoyed books by John Steinbeck.
Later, I was walking home for lunch when a car came around the queue for the red traffic light at the end of the road works and stopped in the middle of the road! It was Steve, waving to me and getting confused by the traffic signals, so I managed to wave him back into the queue before he was mown down by oncoming traffic!

I love this job!