Adventures in Book Collecting

Adventures have happened to me over the years, all in the quest of building my personal library. Nearly driving off the mountain above Bath, England comes to mind immediately. I had already bought a few books in Bath and decided that exploring the area around it, was a good idea. That was just before I found myself on a single lane dirt road that ran around the side of the mountain and a car came approaching me. I froze. To my right were trees, bushes and a drop down about 500 feet. I wasn’t about to move. The other driver, probably a resident and used to such moments, unkindly drove with a part of her car half way up the mountainside to get around me.

Who thinks of England being a mountainous country? Again I came close to falling off the mountain but this time I drove to a seaside town in Cornwall to see where Daphne Du Maurier lived after she became famous for her fiction. The coast of Cornwall is breathtakingly beautiful with areas of sheer rock jutting out over the smashing waves breaking on huge boulders below. The road I was on overlooked a village nestled on the shoreline, between rising rock on both sides.

The streets that led off my road ran down to the sea. Straight down. ‘Well, I thought, the townspeople must drive down those streets or they wouldn’t be there, right?’ I turned my English, gear-shift-on-the-left car into the street and thought I was going to fall end over front down the macadam! As the car sped on without my foot on the gas, I spotted a street to my right, made an instant decision and swerved the car around the corner, and around the next corner again heading back up off this damn mountain! Gears were grinding, the car screeching in protest, sweating more than I was. People passing by on the sidewalks raised their heads to look at me in wonder, eyes wide but not as wide as mine. I wasn’t sure my car couldn’t make it. I kept pressing on the accelerator, finally reaching the overlook road. Whew.

I found a spot to pull over, put the car in park, got out and kissed the ground while thanking the Angels in the same breath. Another quick decision made-I’d leave Du Maurier for another time.