Holy caramel. I have just visited The Bead Company here in Glasgow and while I'm not a bling girl nor a jewellery-maker, I can definitely appreciate a place as devoted to creativity as that shop. Two floors of all sorts of beads - crystal, glass, gemstone, metal, big, small, cheap, affordable, expensive and in every single hue of the rainbow. Plus, you know, space devoted to workshops, tools, a small but refined library and extremely nice staff. Wow. Now, can we get a haberdashery and a wool shop* as amazing as that, please? I'd also like a local bookshop with the same sort of dedication and range in stock (because the much-anticipated Lost in Fiction turned out to be a bookshop for people who don't really like books).

I have just finished Diáz' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Thoughts to come.

* Not that I don't like K1 Yarns, it just doesn't have a particularly big range.