S is for Stones

In preparation for World Book Day, we ventured out into the arctic March weather to source a printed book using a voucher my eldest daughter had been given at her school. The said voucher meant we could choose one of eight selected books for £1 or have £1 off any other children’s book. Groovy. We parked the car and the ticket machine wasn’t working so we left a handwritten note saying we’d paid our £1 but the ticket machine was out of order. Not a great start. We then walked along the high street noticing the number of shops with ‘Closing Down’ notices in the shop window. We found our selected bookshop and were about to open the doors when we noticed the sign on the doors saying ‘10.30am’ opening on Sundays. Typical. We were there at 10 excited about browsing through all the gorgeous children’s books only to be turned away. In fact, the only retail shops that were open were the well-known coffee shops so we duly went into one and spent a vast amount on unplanned hot chocolates and caffeine. Maybe the organisers of World Book Day have teamed up with the coffee vendors and have all opened later so members of the public are forced to part with their cash elsewhere. Or maybe it’s just the demise of high street shops. As the Internet matures and offers a 24 hr shopping experience and instant delivery, the high street shops are being left behind and are giving up. After happily drinking her hot chocolate, my eldest daughter asked if she could return to the ‘Stones’ bookshop that we had tried to enter earlier. I think she thought we were going to look for pebbles rather than books. Half an hour later, we emerged as happy customers clasping our new books but rather shaken by the whole retail adventure. In the afternoon, we popped over to the allotment where life was much more straightforward.