Loaghtan Books

  There's no arguing with the sea.   Until storm Barra came to call, this wall surrounded the sunken garden in Douglas, the Isle of Man's capital.  Now it is an embryo rockery in the garden.  The sea should stay about fifteen feet to the right of this photograph.  It didn't.  The wall is, or rather was, a solid one and had stood firm for many decades, but it succumbed to the battering of hundreds of tons of water.  I feel rather sorry for the Douglas Corporation gardeners who lovingly tended the sunken gardens over the years and had made them a colourful haven of peace in a busy area of Douglas. Loaghtan Books, twenty miles north of Douglas, was mostly sheltered from storm Barra, although we did lose some tiles off the roof.  Deliveries were interrupted though.  Local deliveries were difficult due to flooding and/or trees down, overseas deliveries were impossible as post planes/boats were cancelled.  Sorry about that - normal servic...

  On Saturday we had a stall in the Laxey Christmas Fair, which is run over four venues and two days in Laxey, Isle of Man.  The picture shows the queues forming before the fair opened.  Unfortunately they were not all queuing for us, so we still have some books left if you'd like any. Getting there was quite exciting as Storm Arwen was still making itself felt.  On one particularly debris-strewn road I walked in front of the car, clearing bits of twig, branches, clumps of gorse and frightened birds off the road.  Then we met the fallen tree... We like doing fairs such as this, though, as it's one of the few occasions when we get to talk with real readers.  We listen to bookshops who tell us what their readers want.  Then we listen to readers who tell us what they really want.  Sometimes the bookshops are right. This sort of event puts us in a quandary, however.  It's lovely when someone says 'I've got all your books', but it does mean that ...

I once had an argument with someone who said that she thought you should only give gifts which you would like to receive yourself. I disagree entirely.  We're not all the same and so don't like the same things.  My father put it well when he said that the best gifts are those which the recipient would really like but would never buy for themselves. And that requires thought doesn't it?  Ever given someone batteries with the label 'toys not included'?  Of course not, so that's why so many of us think more seriously about our friends and neighbours at this time of the year than at any other, as we try to work out what they would really like.  OK, world peace, an end to global warming, no poverty and happiness for everyone might be a bit difficult to organise immediately, but getting everyone vouchers is just a cop out. One of the best gifts I've ever been given was a set of Imperial spanners.  Thank  you George. Good luck with your search. Incidentally, ...

  A couple of days ago I had to give a talk on publishing to the Lonan Men’s Fellowship.   It seemed to go quite well, there were lots of things to pass round, like a wooden printing block, and examples of letterpress and picture blocks, to say nothing of the odd glitch in published documents.   The audience was both knowledgeable and appreciative, and contained several published authors.   I am reminded of the late Duke of Edinburgh who said that he was often asked to give talks on subjects to an audience all of whom knew more about the subject than he did. The talk was held in Baldrine Methodist Hall.   It’s a typical church hall, built about a hundred years ago, of the type which used to be ubiquitous but is fast disappearing.   I liked it hugely, both for itself (I’m old fashioned) and because it reminded me of the hall in the parish in which I grew up.   That was a memorial hall, erected and dedicated to the memory of the fallen in the First Wor...

In our last blog post we showed you our delivery vehicle. Like most places in Britain we've been getting rather a lot of rain.  We couldn't use the top road for deliveries as it was blocked by a washed-away tree.  We couldn't use the bottom road for deliveries as it was flooded. The MER was the only thing getting through from where we're based.  Customers in Ramsey and Laxey were rather surprised to see us arrive with their deliveries when they'd been told nothing was moving on the roads...

The photograph is our delivery vehicle.  Seriously. W e live and work close to the Manx Electric Railway, the only tramway in the world still operating with its original rolling stock.  Most of the vehicles are Victorian or Edwardian and it’s our public transport. The MER runs between Douglas and Ramsey on the east coast of the Isle of Man.  Laxey is roughly midway.  We have customers in Ramsey, Laxey and Douglas and, what with the lack of parking, we use the MER to deliver to customers whenever we can.  Besides, the MER is fun! Interesting fact:   the main coastal route into Douglas (the capital) from the north only exists because the entrepreneurs building the tramway thought they might as well lay a road next to the rails at the same time.

I was delivering some books to a customer in Ramsey and I saw a peregrine falcon. Not overly surprising you might think, but this one was eating a pigeon on a small patch of grass right in the middle of the town.  Ramsey is the second largest town on the Isle of Man and, while not huge, still has its share of main roads and bustling shops. I’d never seen a peregrine falcon on the ground before so I hung back to watch.  Not so other passersby.  Pretty soon a small crowd, all waving phones around taking photographs and selfies, was… well… crowding.  Not surprisingly the bird didn’t like it.  She backed off,  fluttered to perch on a nearby bench and eventually gave up and flew away.  Cheated of her lunch the falcon had to hunt again.  Less shy, crows and seagulls finished off her pigeon. It struck me that this was like a microcosm of what’s happening in the world.  Our wants take precedence over the needs of everything we share the planet ...