I love Wigtown Book Festival!

Wigtown Harbour. Aww, look at Antony's little white paws.

I love the Wigtown Book Festival! In an ideal world I would like to stay in Wigtown for the whole ten days but sadly this year I could only manage one day away. Jill and I went last weekend and took Antony for his first taste of the book festival.

It's always difficult to take dogs out and about as so few places welcome them but we were delighted that he was allowed to join us for tea and delicious gluten free almond cakes at Reading Lasses and also for lunch at the Bladnoch Inn.

We started the day with a great informal chat by Deirdre Nelson. She talked about her residency at last year's Book Festival where she collected over 700 favourite words from festival goers. It was fascinating to hear what happened to the words and all the projects and collaborations that have resulted. Author J P Flintoff was sitting next to us and he drew pictures and wrote down snippets as Deirdre chatted, resulting in a little paper book by the end of the talk. It's creativity like this that the festival attracts and cultivates. You see it everywhere during the ten days of the festival and it's very inspiring.

Antony at Bladnoch Inn

Our afternoon talk was by David Mach. I enjoyed his current show at the City Arts Centre in Edinburgh but a lot of his talk didn't really resonate with me. We came away with lots of interesting thoughts about public art and private galleries, and went home to have an interesting debate about it over dinner that evening.

Antony in Andy Priestman's Studio

Finally we went to Andy Priestman's beautiful studio to choose work for the gallery and buy some pots. Antony looked as if he was made to pose in Andy's grey and red studio and Jill was wearing exactly the colours of one of the paintings!