I recently took a fun-filled trip to Yeovil City Centre.
Also it was raining.
I went into several charity shops that contained nothing I
wanted to buy. In The Last Charity Shop,
I eventually ended up by The Children’s Books Section. I could see already that there was nothing of
interest here. The First Shelf were tiny
little books and The Bottom Shelf were huge hardback books and nowhere was
there a shelf of ‘wide rather than tall’ picture books. But I didn’t want to go back into The Rain
yet so I mechanically flicked through The Rack of books in front of me.
Flip, flip, flip, nothing.
Move to next pile. Squirm out of
the way of someone trying to get past.
Flip, flip, flip, nothing. Turn
to The Housemate to hear what he’s saying.
Mutter response. Move to next
pile. Flip…
Turned on its spine to completely conceal and fit it behind
a large hardback book was
The Church Mice And The Moon
written and illustrated by Graham Oakley,
published
1974.
‘They knew they were being made into astronauts, but they weren’t quite sure what an astronaut was. Humphrey said that a friend of his knew somebody who had read in a newspaper that somebody on the telly had said that an astronaut was a camel with three humps. But they didn’t see how rotating and gyrating and doing huge horrible sums would turn them into one of those.’
The third book in the Church Mice series. One I do not own. Or did not, until this point. This brings The Collection up to SEVEN, which
means I am past half way.
It also cost 99p, which is somewhat of a saving on The
£27.05 it was going for on Amazon.
Arthur and Humphrey, the leaders of the Church Mice, are
kidnapped by two scientists who intend to send them into space...
‘A reporter asked how they were to get back from the moon, but the scientists pretended not to hear, and went on to say that blast-off was scheduled for 2.0000436 seconds after eleven, so there was just time for everybody to get a quick cup of tea.’
...and it is up to Sampson the Church cat to rescue them.
Like the second in the series and The Last Most Recent
Acquisition, The Church Cat Abroad, the main body of the mice aren’t in it very
much, which is a shame, but it’s still very very witty, full of delicious
detail and utterly beautiful.
God, I love these books.
‘He felt sad because he thought he would never see his friends again and it had been nice having someone around to feel so superior to.’
Also during this Yeovil trip I found a V cheesecake.
It was a good day.
This is all true. I was THERE.
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