Jaffe & Neale is one of those bookshops that other bookshops assumed I was going to visit, when they heard I was visiting the great independent bookshops. Me, I memorized the Schedule on a need-to-know, one-day-at-the-time basis, so I just had a vague idea where I was going in the future.

“So you’re visiting Oxford? Then you have to stop at Jaffe & Neale on the way.”
“Yes, quite likely. Let me just check my Schedule…”
“It’s a great bookshop, You really should visit it.”

And of course, Louise’s Schedule did not let me down. After Ledbury Books and Maps (and a sausage in a bun, with some great sort of relish) I carried myself and my suitcase back to the train station to get the train from Ledbury to Kingham, and then from Kingham to Chipping Norton.

And it really is a charming bookshop, full of personalized signs and light blue colour.

“Excuse me”, I said, as always consulting my Schedule. “Is Patrick by any chance in today?”
“Patrick? Here? On a Saturday.”
While not in itself surpricing that the suggested person on my schedule was not in, especially on a weekend, the incredulous tone was something of a surprice. My experience of independent booksellers are that they work all hours.
“No, no, Patrick is out crawling in the mud.”
“Eh? Well, yes, I see”, I said, even more confused. “And why..? I mean, that’s perfectly understandable, I’m sure.”
It was not understandable. Why anyone would crawl around in the mud was completely incomprehensible to me, and why anyone should do it in stead of spending time in this bookshop was an even greater mystery.
“Rugby. Every Saturday this time of year.”
That solved the question about the mud, but it did in no way explain why anyone would prefer to get mangled in the mud to books. But I guess it is good, that booksellers have a life outside the bookshop.

Their recommendation? Alice and the Fly and Neverhome. It should come as no surprice by this time that I bought both.

I’m afraid I also took the books with the handwritten signs recommending them – a great memory for me, an annoyance to the poor booksellers who have to write them all over again.