Festival goers

A houseful of friends for the weekend was the perfect reason to crack open the gin and do a little sampling. Will it be the very English Brockmans, the quirky German Monkey 47 from the Black Forest or the precious St Laurent gin, carried to us over the Atlantic by sweet Canadian friends? Yes, the box of tissues was still very much on hand as well, along with the bottle of Benylin too.

What wild and woolly days we had, though. Those temporary structures took some beating in the high winds and we were really glad to have seats well away from the lighting gantries, which swung from side to side whilst we were trying to focus on the presentation.

The weather meant that, rather than mooch around the various sideshows and bookshops in between events, we took refuge over the road at 131 for a couple of hours, by which time it had faired up nicely and a somewhat calmer scene returned.

Nevertheless, it was good to find a couple of afternoon events were scheduled for the more solid structure of the Town Hall. I’d say those were the star choices of our weekend too: Peter Frankopan speaking about The New Silk Road and a little later, Mishal Husein who inspired Olga and I with her relaxed and confident approach.

I think we’ll remember the 2018 Literature Festival for the extreme weather - not only was it wild, it was also strangely warm. Just what to wear to stay dry/cool/comfortable proved to be the challenge of each day.

Or perhaps the real challenge was what to choose from whatever menu happened to be there…

Because yes, it was a very jolly weekend indeed.