Declivity (and Working in "Safe Mode")

It’s the sort of word you might expect to find on a French road sign outside Boulogne, intended to warn British motorists of a one-in-seven gradient (and, indeed, it is). But "declivity" also defines the sort of feeling of steep decline that tends to pervade the book-selling business during the month of August. Even when my business was successful August was a horrid month through which to try and work. The phone never rang, the postman never brought orders or (better) cheques, and the proprietor was mindful, as now, to pay more attention to cricket matches than catching up on his filing or maintaining his blog.

My little business has also been suffering from worms. Computers have been collapsing despite the best ministrations of our anti-virus software. Strange "kernel" diseases strike without warning and huge amounts of time and effort are expended on restoring lost files and trying to figure out ways of fulfilling our few orders without label printing software, or the ability to actually reply to customer emails.

We’ve all been working in what Microsoft Windows would term as "Safe Mode". The cat moves ponderously from room to room complaining that it is too hot. The wife, who has had her leg in plaster these past three weeks, has become adept at clumping around the house and garden in a Long John Silver sort of way (making a lot of noise, but not moving very far). The daughter and sister-in-law are preoccupied with themselves and the property market, and on Tuesdays the grandchildren have been coming to call.

These Tuesday visits are "full days" from eight am to seven pm and the wife is expected to provide not only a full catering service, but to return the children to their parents fed, bathed and ready for bed at the end of the day. This presented a small problem on the first Tuesday as it happened to be a glorious summer day and there was only one thing for it – the beach!

Needless to say it was early afternoon before children, grandparents, picnic, fly swats, beach chairs, windbreaks, parasol, rugs, towels, sun-block (factor 20), Hello magazine, Daily Telegraph, book, buckets and spades, swimwear, towels, nappies, pot, sister-in-law, the camera, mobile phones, money for ice cream, bottled water, things mysteriously called "wipes" and assorted footwear were all unloaded onto the West Wittering shoreline. But the concensus was that it was thoroughly worthwhile. West Wittering beach on a good day is as good as the British seaside gets. However we failed miserably to meet the deadline for evening baths.

Oh heck!