80 Pence

Really. My ISO went to London for summer and he didn't even get me a lousy t-shirt.

Fortunately he brought a gift - something even cheaper than the 5 pound tee. He'd better since I seriously wanted to bean him when I found out he'd be doing London for three weeks. Fucking bastard. Usually I'd be resentful as hell but I've found kabbalah.

My ISO : I'm going to London to see the queen.
Paul : Motherchucker.
My ISO : You could come along.
Paul : Fucking basstard.

Okay I haven't actually found kabbalah. It wasn't my best day.

Sure he did the sweet thing asking me but I figure I'd better not take such a risk. An impulsive weekend jaunt over to a neighbouring country would be one thing but three weeks strolling hand-in-hand through the streets of London would be criminally dangerous. For me, nostalgia on paper is sweet, nostalgia in real life has dangerous consequences.


A day at the bookstore
So during his walks around London, my ISO stumbled into a secondhand store and got me a book. Cheap tattered paperback actually all of 80 pence at the most. Probably less if he'd bargained hard. But I adored it. Seems like he remembered my penchant for picking up Heyers on the go while I was there last.

One of my peculiar obsessions - anyone who has been to my library can attest to the fact that I have multiple copies of her regency novels all stacked up in several shelves. Started with a handful of inherited novels by Georgette Heyer that came in a steamer trunk in secondary. Fell in love with her wit and style which led to randomly buying her paperbacks wherever I saw them. Since they were out-of-print for quite a few years, I only found them in dark, dusty secondhand stores full of nostalgia, knickknacks and forgotten memories - all the way from Bangkok to Paris.

Obviously my ISO hasn't forgotten the endless summers tramping through the dust, cobwebs and silverfish just to find that coffee-stained copy of the Grand Sophy.