It’s Festival Time and the Weather is Autumny

It’s August in Edinburgh, and it can only mean one thing…well. Two things. The rain and wind have returned to torment us and……the city’s population has doubled to accommodate festival performers, artists and revellers!

The festival began as the Commonwealth Games came to an end, and I’ve been able to experience a fair bit with my friend and her parents who came to visit, and with my blog and twitter friend, Holly who came up for a long weekend! Last year, when Holly and I met in person for the first time she had just missed the festivals so I had told her she had to make a return to Edinburgh in the summer to experience the madness!

We were missing our fellow blog friends this time, but we managed to cover a lot of things wandering the Royal Mile, taking a few chances on free fringe events, going to the Museum of Scotland after hours, visiting the art galleries, going up Calton Hill, having drinks by giant purple cows, eating from the Fringe food vans in the George Square Gardens, visiting the Book Festival, making sure Holly got an ‘I [heart[ Edinburgh’ bag and seeing a performance of Sunshine on Leith. 

I had to abandon Holly for a few hours on the Saturday as I had a ticket to the Youth Libraries Scottish conference at Edinburgh’s Central Library. I’d been recommended to go by some folks studying Children’s Literature at Glasgow Uni and I was more than a little excited to meet Nick Sharratt who has written a few of my favourite children’s book as well as illustrating books by one of my favourite authors – Jacqueline Wilson. I was one of only two people attending who wasn’t a Librarian, but I learned a lot from the event and I hope I gave something of value to contribute too. 

And speaking of Dame Jacqueline Wilson, I had the privilege of taking Miss Sweetroot (my friends’ daughter) to an event she was doing at the Book Festival the next morning. The night before I had been babysitting Miss S and her younger brother and had of course told Miss S all about meeting Nick Sharratt and shown her pictures of Nick with the birthday cake they had gotten him. It just so happened as well that while I was at Unconference, Mini Kahuna had been buying one of Nick’s books at the Book Festival Children’s bookshop! As Jacqueline informed the audience about how she’d just met Nick for cocktails the previous evening and he had shown her a draft cover for her 101st book, Miss S and I had a fun moment exchanging knowing looks. I was also super impressed by this once painfully shy girl having her hand straight up to ask Jacqueline a question (which she didn’t get to ask sadly – there were just too many children with their hands up!). We had chatted in the queue about whether she would want to do this, and if she had the chance is there something she’d like to ask Jacqueline Wilson. She is Miss S’s favourite author, and I think thanks to Jacqueline’s investment in engaging with her readers through media such as her author website and magazine she has made a positive impression on  Miss S (and many other children). Miss S did get to ask a question to the illustrator of the Hugless Douglas books at an event she attended with her Mum and younger brother a couple of days later, and was most pleased to hear that one of their favourite illustrators was Nick Sharratt!

It’s been a busy fortnight packed with activity. If this blog seems quiet, it’s because I’ve been focusing more on my Edinburgh blog – writing about the Edinburgh Festivals and preparing posts about various tourist attractions in the city. The inspiration to do this came after I picked up the Lonely Planet guide for Edinburgh and discovered it was promoting a couple of places that don’t exist anymore (despite only being published earlier this year). 

The Edinburgh schools open up tomorrow, and next week Girlguiding starts up for the new school year as well in our area. It’ll soon be time to re-enroll for my second year at Glasgow and of course the job hunting continues. I hope to take some more time to write while the sun has stopped shining. I’m certainly feeling inspired by so many things this summer, and now have three writing projects on the go (not including my blogs!)

I’ve also been informed that some folks are struggling with WordPress not allowing them to write comments on my blog posts. I’m so sorry that I hadn’t been aware of this before. If you experience this frustration, let me know in a tweet (@koalainscotland).