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December 2011

Happy Birthday to Us!

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It’s our birthday! Hurley Books first started trading formerly in November 2002. A website called Amazon had just opened up part of its site to second hand sales.  Steve and I knew all about books and about selling them, I was a librarian and he had supplemented his college years by selling books on market stalls and fairs.  Being a librarian I was pretty clued up on how important the internet would be and so I suggested that we gave it a go.  At eleven o’ clock that night Stephen dashed into the bedroom.  Now given that our two boys were 1 and 3 my sleep was precious to me and unless there was a problem with one of the children this had better be good.  In Steve’s eye it was better than good it was miraculous. We had just sold a Mary Jane Staples for £5.87, a book he would take ages to sell on the market stall.  I was less than impressed, I knew it would work, we see it all the time in libraries. People love their authors and are desperate to read everything by them, once a book goes out of print it becomes harder for them to read. Simple supply and demand.  At this point both our eyes glazed over, mine through exhaustion and Steve’s through amazement.

Since then Hurley Books has grown quietly and slowly. We were able to give up our jobs and we opened a little shop in St Austell.  People began to walk in through the front door. We began selling face to face as well as online. After a year the dentist needed to expand and we moved to Charlestown.  Now I have to say, hand on heart that I have never enjoyed my job so much as when I was perched on a wooden stool listening to Seth Lakeman and looking out over the tall ships and the sea beyond.  I could have happily sat there day in day out, the most contented person ever without seeing a single customers but once again (thankfully) they turned up.

Finally we took the plunge and in a high risk strategy (well for us anyway) we bought our own place in Mevagissey and took on a warehouse in Par. Suddenly we were shop owners and our home no longer looked like the British Library.  That was five years ago on December 2nd.

Mevagissey has been a great success for us; it’s given us stability, income and a great sense of community.  Each year we have tried out new things to stay ahead of the game, book selling is not an easy business at the moment and last year, in December again, we launched The Cornish Bookshop, a website focusing on Cornish books and the like. I’m thrilled to say we have loads of support for this venture and I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops.

So we are 9 years old; we have been in Mevagissey for 5 years and the Cornish Bookshop has passed its first milestone.  Now, it goes without saying that we couldn’t have done it without you so we are most cordially inviting you to come and join us Staurday 3rd, EV Thompson will be with us signing his new book and we’ll be serving mince pies and wine throughout the day. Call us on 01726 825245 to reserve a copy.  Fingers crossed the scaffolding will be down and you can admire our newly painted shop as we put on our best bib and tucker.  It’s also the Christmas Lights in Mevagissey that day so there’ll be loads of things going on.  Please come and join us, it wouldn’t be the same without you!

All huddled together around the bonfire.

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What is it that makes our winter events seem more community focused than our summer ones?  In July and August, the banners are flying, everyone is in flippy skirts and pretty sandals, although I think Steve should shave his legs if he’s going to wear skirts that short! and everyone is looking their finest.  The sun shines down from a bright blue sky, well, not usually but you get the picture,  and the air is warm and beautifully fragranced with summer flowers.  Hundreds gather, crowds throng and maybe you pick out a few faces you recognise amongst the visitors but in winter it’s so very different.

Typically it’s dark so we can ignore the looming clouds, it doesn’t matter what we wear because no one can see us, so we are spared Steve’s  legs and we are all looking at the same thing – not usually Steve’s legs.  In summer our eyes dart everywhere as there is so much to see. In winter we are all looking at the fireworks, or the bonfire, or the torchlight procession.  We are all doing the same things standing alongside our neighbours, or our team mates or our friends.

So far this year we have come together to watch a beautiful fireworks display at St Austell Brewery, every year they generously invite all their neighbours and employees to come along and ooh and ahh. The following evening we went to an even more fabulous display and bonfire at the Lankelly Fowey Rugby grounds.  Fund raising events like this one mean that we can add more bits of kit and start to save towards proper loos. Definitely something we mothers are looking forward to.

We have watched our children lead the Remembrance Day assembly as they struggle to come to terms with the fact that so many have died over the years only a few years older than themselves.  A week later we watch them again raising money for Children in Need as they understand that suffering is not just a thing of the past or something remote.  We were all a bit humbled when watching  one of the  videos, one of the children, let’s call him Jack, turned round and asked his teacher what the name of the boy in the film was.  No one could answer, we had all been focusing on the child’s problems whereas Jack had instantly focused on the child himself.  From time to time we may get “compassion fatigue” children never do.  They cut straight to the heart of it, they don’t care about the politics, the social situations, the blame game. They just see that a child like them, a child who could be their mate, is in trouble.

We have also been wowed by the lantern displays in Truro but thrilled to see just how great St. Austell’s was.  This is the rebirth of something very fresh and optimistic and long may it continue. Looking ahead we have the carol services and the Christmas lights to enjoy, when communities again come together in the darkness to celebrate.  It always seems a shame that January and February seem to be devoid of these occasions, by then the long months of darkness and rain have begun to take their toll and we need something to keep our flagging spirits going.  In the meantime though I’m going to make the most of all the up coming events and make merry with the wassail and the egg nog.

How much?????

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It’s been a challenging week here at Hurley Towers.  We made the decision to close the shop for November whilst Mevagissey gets its streets dug up.  Trade is always weak in November so we thought this would be the perfect time to take a rest, get the scaffolding up, sort out the gutters or hanging gardens as they are more commonly known and get the shop painted.  A bit of a spring clean ready for the Christmas lights and the launch of EV Thompson’s new book.  We knew that it would mean that takings for November would slump a bit but it’s the best time of the year to do it.  And of course we always have the internet to rely on….

As you can probably tell things haven’t quite gone according to plan.  Our neighbour discovered two hidden fireplaces in his walls and a rubbed out chimney – we had a day’s panic whilst we thought we may have the same issue on our side but that seems to be a bill we have sidestepped.  Just good old regular gutter damp.  So there we were relying on the internet when I woke up to an odd e-mail.  The customer asked if I removed the free shipping would I be able to reduce the overall price?  That was odd?  I left in it my to do pile and then opened another e-mail.  This one just said “Are you kidding?”  The next customer explained that they were short of funds this month but would I accept a round £5million pounds for the Jack Higgins paperback? A sense of awful foreboding settled around me.  Quickly I flicked to my online accounts and was astounded and then horrified to discover that I was pricing over half of my online inventory at over £1 million an item.  So far the most I was asking for was £7.5 million for a Danielle Steel second hand paperback.

I had a quick laugh, replied to all queries and shouted to Steve that we had a mild hitch and that we were going to have to close all online sales whilst I tried to find out what was going on.  About 3 hours should do it.  It’s now two weeks later and our software provider are tearing out their hair whilst trying to sort out the problem.  We have no hair left to pull out as we have gone bald through the stress of it all.

We are making some sales but our prices are in a complicated mess. We have been joking that all we need to do is sell one of those multi million pound books and all our problems would be solved.  After day two that joke began to pale.  So now we are looking at each other and asking how this could happen in the run up to Christmas? January and February is when we pull our belts in,  not November. November is when I buy presents, plan Christmas menus and sort out who will be sleeping where when the family arrives.  At this rate we’ll be telling the children that Christmas Lunch is their present and yes Christmas Lunch this year will consist of fish and chips! If they’re good we’ll throw in the ketchup.

Hey ho.  I know we’ll get things fixed but isn’t it frustrating when you think you have every thing all worked out and then all of a sudden, it’s all out of your control and you’re spiralling rapidly towards a nightmare  and wondering what possessed you to buy a new sofa.  Oh and my cold has come back so I really am not impressed with my lot at the moment. Roll on next week, surely things will be better then?