The return

Our idea today was to meander home from Melrose, taking in a few places we know and maybe stopping for lunch somewhere. However, rain this morning made for a change of plan - let’s go straight home. And, as it continued with mist and rain all the way, we had obviously made the right decision. We arrived in Carlisle and the sun came out - now it’s a lovely evening. I do hope it is like this in Melrose for this evening’s events and the weekend when there are whole days of events and activities.

Despite the rain, we enjoyed our visit to the Borders Book Festival and will definitely go again. It is very well organised, I was impressed with the range and quality of speakers, through until next week.

I attended the event where the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction was announced. I am not a huge fan of historical fiction but they do seem to select some very interesting books for their long and short lists and I have often read a number of them. They managed last night to have all six shortlisted authors, from all over the world, there to read from their books - this was wonderful. The winner was Kevin Jared Hosein from Trinidad with his book ‘Hungry Ghosts’. A great guy (see extra) and a brilliant event altogether.

Gordon and I met up later (he had been to some sort of talk about Hawick Rugby!) to go to hear Alistair Moffat who has written many books about the Borders and much else, several of which we have. A highly informative, thought- provoking and entertaining talk. And we finished the evening with Natalie Haynes - utterly brilliant, as I said last night. She keeps a huge audience completely mesmerised and amused. How can an hour go by so quickly. How can one person hold so much in their head.