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 what
a week
Liz
Groves
Tons
of books, hungry cats and winter gardening… Liz Groves takes
Ramona Depares through her fascinating week
Monday:
Because I am a 'criminal' and I open shop over the weekend, Monday
is the beginning of 'my weekend' and what normal women do on a
Saturday morning I do today. Up early and by 8am was already at
the shops to do some household shopping – but only after
I gave my thirteen cats breakfast. My breakfast? A cup of coffee
and several cigarettes… Then it was off to the butcher's:
every three week I have this complicated ordeal where I have to
get enough meat for thirteen cats.
Back home by nine to do chores. Today I have to fill my book shop:
sold some 300 books yesterday which means that I had a certain
amount of re-arranging to do. My husband came home one-ish for
his daily smoked ham sandwich with Maltese bread. He so loves
the Maltese hobza. Of course, I have to make sure that I'm home
everyday at 11.30 in the morning, which is when the bread man
comes round!
Spent whole morning cutting up the meat for the cats. With the
phone ringing every thirty minutes or so, no wonder it took so
long!
A quick lunch and out to do some gardening. It's a pity it gets
dark so early – by five I have to stop whatever I'm doing
and get back inside. Five o'clock is also dinnertime for both
ourselves and the cats. The cats alone go through some three kilos
of beef a day. Not a bad deal for them, considering that they
also have fish at least twice a week as well as chicken liver.
For Christmas they had two whole rabbits to share.
After my dinner, chatted with husband for half an hour then regret
that I ended up playing card games on my computer until ten. After
that it was reading time until I dropped off at around eleven.
Woke up again at three in the morning, took in some more chapters
and nodded off.
Tuesday:
A lady had called a couple of months ago, offering to sell me
some books. I never got round to visiting and I thought I'd lost
the chance as the couple were due to leave the island soon. Suddenly,
this morning, got a call from this same woman asking me if I was
still interested.
Drove round to her house in the morning to find that she had books
lying everywhere, even in her yard! Got some really good bargains,
especially where crime books are concerned. Back home in time
to get the bread: prepared lunch and forced myself to chase a
particular order I'd made in September. The American agents hadn't
got back to me so I decided it was about time I chased them. As
it turned out, after much humming and hawing they discovered that
my order had been lost. And I'd been promising my customers this
particular batch would be in any day now… Anyway, at least
now I can honestly give them a three-week limit.
Spent evening trying to come up with a scheme to get my books
directly from the publishers. I order thousands of titles every
months and it is such a hassle to get the shipping organised.
One consignment went to my ex-shipper by mistake and I still have
not gotten round to getting it back…
Wednesday:
Woke up to the usual routine but my mind was on the book fair.
The local one happens around November, so it's still some time
away but I must start planning! We take so many titles to the
fair and yet we always have requests for ones that we didn't get
along.
Of course, we do try to keep track of what people usually want
to find at a fair, but as Sod's Law would have it, people never
ask for the same kind of books – which means that whatever
we decide on there will still be someone who ends up disappointed.
Thinking about the fair also reminded me how hard we all work
during that particular week, it's a twenty hour day every day.
Thank goodness for the helpers… But I always enjoy it, I
meet so many interesting people and I do love getting into discussions
with book-lovers.
Thursday:
Bank day today. For some reason, there is never a queue on a Thursday
and so I make it a point to carry out all my transactions today.
Rest of morning filled with figures, very boring stuff: filled
my VAT return, concluded my end-of-month figures and worked on
my government statistics form.
Latter proved to be quite complicated: they actually wanted to
know the amount of books I import by genre! As if I bother to
record that kind of information. Called and explained the situation.
I like to get rid of this kind of stuff immediately as it's so
easy to get fined!
Got a visit from a couple who decided to just drop in without
checking our opening hours. They'd come all the way from Dingli,
which is a pity, but really they should have called before…
There is a fallacy that if you only open a shop over the weekend,
the rest of the week you spend doing nothing, lying on a sofa
with your feet up. This is so untrue… I have loads of other
things to work on, I'm an antiquarian specialising in Melitensia
and I spend loads of time doing research.
Friday:
Woke up in anticipation of the weekend. I really have to get legalised,
this Sunday Trading ban is getting ridiculous… Finally placed
the adverts on the papers last week – we're having a sale!
You get so many fascinating types of people during a sale…
Some people will spend around forty pounds and leave with their
car stacked full of books. I mean, where else are going to get
a whole pile of books for a mere forty liri? From other places
you'd get four or five titles at the most!
Because I only open over the weekend, I try to make sure that
I have as many titles as possible for my customers. There's nothing
worse than looking forward to getting a particular book the whole
week and then not finding it. There are lots of subjects available
but I try to limit myself to those areas which are potentially
interesting to me. This rules out molecular biology! Yes, we do
have academic books available but then again we're not too academic…
Saturday:
Up at the crack of dawn, six to be precise. Fed cats, washed clothes,
washed hair, bought milk. By eight I was already in the shop and
by twenty-past the first customers started trickling in . I like
to give my customers freedom to browse – some spend as long
as three hours in book heaven – and I only give help when
it's asked for.
Long day today, with no official stop for lunch. I like to be
available for anyone who might decide to drop in the afternoon
while on their way to friends.
Unfortunately, I've had to drop quite a few subjects from the
shop's selection, including natural history, sport and travel.
It's Sod's Law again: if you have a book about parakeets, people
are bound to inquire about budgies. Or if it's something about
Thailand they need, you'll have everything from the Bahamas to
New Jersey except for that particular one.
Sunday:
Again, open by 8.15am. Some newcomers are overwhelmed by the huge
selection and will feel lost without some guidance. Had a group
of schoolkids who were looking for some Harry Potter books…
Sundays brings in families mostly, fathers and daughters dropping
in after Church, parents and kids on their way to afternoon picnics.
Extremely busy day, but highly enjoyable. Good thing I've got
a really retentive memory (I tend to shoot off the author's name
as soon as I'm given a title) otherwise how would I cope with
all the requests?
To bed after closing time, tomorrow it's the weekend'!
 Photos
by Pippa Zammit Cutajar
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