New shops!

Nicki and I are taking Alex and Timothy off for a few days by the seaside from tomorrow - a big milestone for us as the shop will remain open for business as usual for the first time whilst we're away. This is testament to the fantastic team we now have at Mostly Books, although I'm sure everyone will be relieved when we've finally gone and stopped leaving huge to-do lists, contingency plans, operating procedures and other nonsense from their slightly neurotic and panicky employers. Good luck to everyone over the next few days - we promise not to phone up every five minutes to check how it's all going... Anyway, before we go - two bits of news that each probably warrant their own blog post, but I don't have time before we leave tomorrow. Firstly, we've discovered another new bookshop on the cusp of opening. Now that Simon and Tim are well and truly up and running, with events and school accounts coming thick and fast, I call upon Tim and Simon to pass the "new bookshop" staff of blog power (passed to them from us, passed to us from Crockett & Powell) to Karen at Inkspot and Silverleaf, which is opening imminently in Bo'ness, Scotland (my Scottish geography is not too good - I'm guessing that's near Falkirk?). That picture of all those boxes of Gardners books stacked up sent shivers down my spine - that's a big, exciting, exhausting job ahead for someone... Good luck to Karen and I&S - and let us know how we can help. Much closer to home, we have a splendid new shop opening right here in Abingdon. Local Roots will be officially opened this Friday by Sophie Grigson, and Chris and Sukey have been slaving hard over the past month turning #4 East St. Helen Street into a beautiful shop, which will sell local produce sourced within a 30-mile radius of the shop. With innovations such as a cycle-delivery service, and plenty of organic and smallholders supplying produce, this is an exciting new addition for Abingdon and just the kind of independent shop towns like Abingdon need to thrive in the future. Sorry we can't be there at the opening guys, but we hope it goes extremely well, and we'll be round next week when we get back...