You won’t be very surprised to find that the witch household saves its water bottles, I trust. These days only the best ones, but we still have far too many. They want to be sturdy and the right size (depends how thirsty we are), and preferably look nice or special in some way.
The Gothenburg book fair which begins today – no, I’m not there – gives away a new bottle bearing each year’s special design, along with a book bag and bits and pieces. Please tell me I’m not the only one to carry the bottle home afterwards, giving it a proper ‘sports cap’, and using and reusing it!
It’s quite nice to look at a bottle and remember what I was doing when I found it. I wasn’t very thirsty last year in Cheltenham when we waited for Eoin Colfer in the green room. But when I realised how good the bottles in their fridge looked, I got a lot thirstier, so helped myself to one. Just wish Daughter hadn’t absentmindedly started unsticking the label. It’s what we want the bottles for, young lady!
Along with the book bags that all self-respecting book events now offer, it’d be good to find a unique bottle everywhere. Edinburgh was good in that it had taps where you could refill your bottle, so the next logical step would be to supply the bottle itself.
I hope the Gothenburg fair can manage without me. I’ll pretend I’m running along the upstairs corridors to avoid the crush downstairs. I’ll try not to think of the queues for the toilets. I’ll think of the stripey sofas instead. And I’ll think of how nice it is to run into people I know.
After some serious dithering, Son got himself off to the book fair this year, so at least someone was there representing the witch clan. He met up with Pippi and her friend, as well as a witch cousin.
Though he did have quite a job of persuading the people handing out bags with Gudrun Sjödén catalogues that he really is a fifty-something woman librarian…
Persistence will win.