Needful Things

As it was our last day before the arrival of Mr Bing, Bing wanted to spend a perfect afternoon together. After a couple of hours of my big tidy up (emptying the entire contents of the cupboards on to the bed) we raced out of the door, sausage sandwiches in hand, and headed to Littleborough and the most glorious bookshop you ever visited.

If you have ever read Stephen King's 'Needful Things' I need not provide you with any further description of the ambience in this bookshop. A big, old house filled to the rafters with books old and new. And, if you smile sweetly and are very lucky, you are led down the winding garden path to an even bigger, older house storing even more books! We were left alone in the second house for some time, Bing leafing through first editions of this and that in the astronomy section and I looking for inspiration in music and arts.

We were retrieved by a kind gentleman at the wrong side of closing time and left happy with an armful of astronomy books and an old piano album. Next stop was Hebden Bridge for cups of tea, but we somehow got sucked in to another bookshop. The complete works of Beethoven tapped me on the shoulder and begged me to reserve them. Bing took pity and bought them on the spot so that we would both have a bundle to peruse over pots of tea.

We crossed the road to an olde English pub called Shoulder of Mutton serving perfect teas, coffees and hot chocolates. We sat amongst the Saturday Night Brigade, fearless in our geekdom, munching on cheese and onion crisps and Scampi Fries, excitedly reading through our purchases.

The perfect afternoon was followed by a perfect evening amongst friends at the Astronomy Centre. We left at a respectable 1am and returned home to the tidying. Fortunately I had had the presence of mind to record X-Factor so was entertained into tidiness.