Santa, Scrapbooks and Smoked Parmesan Kumara Cubes

Nicki and I have just about recovered from our manic schedule of events, tradeshows and bookgroup meetings in two weeks. Christmas is beginning to loom like a large tinsel-decked iceberg, and we're hoping that the Mostly Books ship doesn't come a cropper on it. Our only experience of the retail run-in to Christmas has been from the other side of the counter, and I guess the challenge for all booksellers is to use all their long bookselling experience so that when - on Christmas Eve - 20 different people are clamouring for the same unexpected must-have Christmas bestseller, they can emerge triumphant from the stockroom with cannily-placed emergency copies. Unfortunately, we don't have that much expertise to call upon (although someone did send us an email a few weeks ago advising us to make our best guesses and then max out our lines of credit to get the books in. Not sure we're that brave!) Anyway, Nicki and I are deep into preparations for our next events. This week we have a craft-theme evening on Thursday: "The Art of Scrapbooking" to coincide with the annual Abingdon Craft Fair. Next Wednesday is the first meeting of the Wednesday bookgroup. However, I would be lying if I didn't say we are extremely excited (if a tad nervous) about our event on November 2nd - Sophie Grigson will be at the shop, answering questions about and signing copies of her new book "Vegetables". It will be far and away our biggest event to date (no offence to Mr McNair!) and we're keen to make it a big success...