I love living in the future.

Item one: I can place a reserve for new acquisitions at the library online, check my profile, find out that they’re in before the library calls me, and show up to check them out before they’ve even made it to the reserve drawers. I scored An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (an additional yay for the library taking your advice about new books to buy via online request forms), and Alexander McCall Smith’s The Lost Art of Gratitude. Seriously; check out that trio of bestselling authors! And they’re all on my bedside table. (The books, not the authors. It would be very crowded otherwise.)

Item two: This morning I jumped up and down on Twitter about the hat-trick of library books, because I have friends who understand that sort of thing.

Item three: Two seconds later Peter Gregson, a pro Scottish cellist I follow on Twitter and natter with on occasion, sent me a direct message saying that Sandy McCall Smith is a friend of his, and he’d be happy to pass along anything I might want to share with him.

Yes, the future is a wonderful place, where I can connect with people around the globe, and one of the people on my Twitter list and in our extended cello family knows one of my favourite authors and will say hi for me. (I asked him to say that Smith’s work had brought my ex-pat Scot mum and I much joy. Figured that covered pretty much all the bases.)