The Wigtown Book Festival Visit

Hi Everyone,

Gosh, so little time and so much to do ... I've several projects completed and ready to post about, a few more that I'm working on and even more that are in the planning. I've no problems with my mojo, it's on speed, so to speak, and I just wish I could work faster.

Anyways, how are you all doing - I hope you are all well and maybe even enjoying increased crafting activity  like me. Welcome, too, to my newest followers, Mary, Alison, John and Lorraine - it's nice to have you join me here.

Today, as promised, I've got some photos taken on Saturday when we went along to the Wigtown Book Festival. It will be a whistle-stop tour for you because, in order to keep this post as photo-light as possible, I've collated them in collage form

These four photos show Wigtown County Buildings, (top left) and several of the marquees where most of the writers, authors and literary lights hung out and gave talks and interviews to their fans. In recent years Ospreys have nested in the nearby Wigtown Bay area ... CCTV pictures from the nest are fed to the visitor centre in Wigtown County Buildings ... hence the sculpture of the bird in flight (bottom right) rather ingloriously attached to a roan pipe.

These are just a few of the dozen or so of the fascinating bookshops in Wigtown. Whatever your favourite genre,  new or secondhand, you will find it here. The Old Bank Bookshop (top left) has an extensive music section; in the Box of Frogs (top centre) it's children's books; in the Book End Studio (top right) it's a varied stock; The Book Shop (lower left) claims to be the largest in Scotland and I can't disagree; the Cauldron (lower centre) combines selling books - on food, literature and political science - with organic and Fair Trade goodies; the Transformer (lower right) unsurprisingly, given the name, stocks Sci-Fi and scientific books. Wigtown is truly a book-lovers haven.

And here's my favourite of them all.

The Book Corner - love browsing round this shop, not just because they have hundreds, probably thousands , of great books but also because there are bats in the attic! And this time I was particularly delighted to find a copy of this book there:

No, not Maggie Midge - pesky little creature that she is - no the Be-Ro Home Baked Recipes book. I had a much older copy of this, well-thumbed and falling to pieces, which was my baking bible for countless years but somehow managed to lose it so I am really happy to have a new copy even though I notice that one of my favourite recipes, for coffee kisses - a scrumptious biscuit - has been left out of this edition.

Just in case you think that there are only bookshops to Wigtown, here's a few photos to prove that's not entirely so. The pink fronted buildings are there for those of you who just love pink ... you know who you are :)) There's a regular farmers' market which takes place around the town centre - and the plant seller makes good use of the steps around the the Mercat Cross for displaying his wares.

And just to finish here's the EM - couldn't leave him out - enjoying himself:

From browsing round the various displays in the Festival Bookshop, enjoying a roasted hog, haggis and apple sauce stuffed bread roll, and being quite taken with Galdus Og, the robot sculpture designed by the artist, Lawrence Sampson.

The sign says that Galdus Og is a prototype rocket suit ... to be launched in 2018 ... it contains all the combined knowledge of Scotland and will represent the country in space!!!!
Mr Sampson was 'charged with creating an oversized sculpture out of books and  scrap materials, and to do so in a way that could withstand the changing Scottish elements' ... and he seems to have succeeded because Saturday was a day interrupted by showers and Galdus doesn't have an umbrella :))


Many thanks if you stuck with me this far ... you'll be pleased to know that you've come to the end. I hope you enjoyed visiting, albeit cyberly, the Wigtown Book Festival.

Unfortunately, I somehow managed to miss seeing and hearing John Simpson, the journalist, and I wasn't able to stay to join in the discussion on the success of E L James' Fifty Shades of Grey ... such is life! I didn't even spend a fortune on signed copies of the latest literary goodies, but did note down the titles of those that I would like to read one day and they are now on my Amazon wishlist ... perhaps I'll get round to buying one or two when I've got through the ton of books already piled high on my bedside table :) However, I had a great time mooching around the book stands, people watching and earwigging on the various conversations with the authors happy to discuss their works, and that, for me, is what the festival is all about.

I'll be back with a crafting project tomorrow, take care all and happy crafting,