Books books books

I love books. I have thousands of them. When we moved to this house, the removal man, after hulking dozens and dozens of boxes from the van to the house said: "There's only two kinds of people have this many books: Reverends and Doctors. Which kind are you? Well, it's the latter: a Doctor of Geology. Which explains the comment of another removal man who, while heaving a tea chest up the stairs, wheezed: "What you got in here Guv? Rocks?" Well, yes, actually.

The problem with constantly buying books is that eventually you have to get rid of them. I thought I had found a solution to this problem by transferring some down to the large cellar under our house. It seemed clean and dry, had fluorescent lighting, and was painted throughout. I set up some book shelves and have been stacking them high. As new tomes pour in through the front door, old tomes have been slipping down the back stairs.

But oh dear, I hadn't reckoned on the walls of the cellar being porous and permeable. I guess it must have been quite dry here in France over the last few years, because after the storm and associated heavy rain a couple of weeks ago, we witnessed, for the first time, water leaking into our cellar. It didn't seem to add up to much, so we just ignored it, as you do. A big mistake. Within days we noticed a funny smell which I took to be a damp and horrible old armchair my wife had rescued from outside someone's house during the self-same thunderstorm.

When we eventually got around to checking, the smell turned out to be my books! The wall behind them was wet, there was no air circulating, it was humid, and green mould was making its way all over them. So began a rescue operation that has now been going on for about a week. First, removal from the zone of risk. Secondly drying. Thirdly dusting off mould. Fourthly, throwing away the unsaveable. Fifthly, trying to flatten back into shape the saveable.

Now that the basement is a danger zone, I have had to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. So, sixthly, boxing up and getting rid of the unwanted. Seventhly, making space for that which remains.

This weekend was the school fete, so four well-packed boxes went off to that (not mouldy books you understand) and there got well rained on. How horrible to see these books for which one has pledged protection, going out into the world to such a cruel end. It really made me feel quite sick. A few made it safely into shopping bags and will no doubt end up loved on someone else's bookshelf, but it felt rather like watching that animal film where a herd of young gnus cross a crocodile infested river and only one or two of them make it out on the other side.

As for the books that remain, they will be better looked after, more read. I am going to stop buying books for a while. The pain's gone too deep.