Every village needs a kebab shop

‘A diary?’ said the lady in the chintzy gift shop, pronouncing the word very much as Edith Evans said ‘handbag’ in the 1952 film of The Importance of Being Earnest.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘a diary. Do you have one?’ I was standing in the middle of a shop so like one that would sell a diary that I could not express quite adequately how obvious I thought it was that they might.

This gift shop and café is on the high street of the village where I live and is easily one of the prettiest gift shop/cafés you have ever seen. It has every kind of pretty thing inside, from greetings cards and novelty books about wellbeing to china cups, shawls and rugs, lamps, pictures and doggy-themed place mats.

‘No!’ said the lady, who is usually very friendly, but now seemed put out as I perused a book that was divided into days, like a journal, but did not have the dates.