Literature, cake and a new look

In the fine weather today, we had plenty of takers for the courtyard garden, but we're rather used to having to entertain periodic groups of 2s and 3s - rather than the party of eleven that piled into the shop this morning just past 10. Anne Soper - a teacher of English Literature at Abingdon School, who has (I discovered with some expert googling) been with the school's English Department for over 20 years - came in to see if we could accommodate a departing English Literature set, one of whom had been in the previous day to pick up a leaving present. "No problem" I said (this is my standard pathologically-optimistic reply to almost any question BTW) and led them through the shop, stopping to press-gang two stragglers into taking an extra table and chairs in the garden. After having served up copious amounts of coffee, cake, soft drinks (including one pink milk, complete with coloured straw) I demanded something that I could put on the blog - here is the piece submitted: "Anne Soper and Rodney Mearns of Abingdon School led the departing Upper Sixth English Literature set on a jaunt to the 'mostly books' courtyard for coffee and cakes (all of them). The set consisting of: Andrew Barton, Oliver Foster, Henry Freeland, Kevin Lee, Oliver Minton, Huw Parmenter, Dacid Radcliffe, Stuart Robertson and Adam Withnall. Thoroughly enjoyed their hour in the May morning sunshine. Thank you." Would appreciate a copy of the (obviously brilliant) photograph I took of you all - cheers guys! Lots to say about the shop at the moment. The launch of our loyalty scheme (homebrew, bit of an experiment), the launch of our Children's Review Project and our selection as official booksellers at the Children's Food Festival in July will be the subject of future blogs. But the big news is - we've had a big revamp and switch around of where we put book in the shop - pictures soon!