So I opened the toolshed yesterday, took everythig out, sorted it and trashed the unnecessary stuff that had been hanging around for far too long, washed-out the shed and put everything back.

In the process I opened one small, grubby, otherwise unremarkable cardboard box, and therein rediscovered a selection of books – most of which I had been missing for a decade. Like some itch that you can’t scratch, occasionally you skim through your bookshelves and wonder “What happened to X? Did I lend it to someone?” – well, now I know, where X includes:

• Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (unabridged)
• Niven: Ringworld
• Niven: The Ringworld Engineers
• Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker
• Gleick: Genius
• Pratchett: Soul Music
• Pratchett: Eric
• Penguin: The Portable Milton
• Macrone: Brush Up Your Shakespeare

…and judging by some of the other oddments in the box, if I am right they haven’t seen the light of day since 1996, packed for the move from Witney to Stanton Harcourt.

There’s a little discolouration on the page edges, but I buy books in worse condition; they’ve done remarkably well considering the environment.

I’m keeping the above. The hospice shop can have the rest.