Edinburgh Book Festival 2019

James and I went through to the Edinburgh Book Festival yesterday, gleefully exulting in the excellently priced train tickets that James had booked using our new “two together” railcard. The weather was absolutely beautiful; if anything a bit too humid, which accounted for what came later.
We didn’t get off to a good start. My Australian writer hero and affable surfer dude Tim Winton proved to be an interesting but quietly thoughtful speaker. This was all very well for those of us who were his superfans but James has only listened to part of one of his books on a car journey (and had described it as “drear”) and I could see that he was trying not to doze off. Our second author, acclaimed cooking celebrity and author Prue Leith, was much more lively and as well as being entertaining she gave us a few excellent cooking tips.
We then wandered a short distance along to Browns Bistro for dinner. The whole glass front of the restaurant was attractively opened up to the pavement with tables outside too, and the food was great; tasty and beautifully presented.
Our third and final writer of the day was Professor Robert Crawford, who has edited a collection of poems and short stories about Iona. He is also Cambuslang’s greatest living poet and in the words of Buddy in Elf when he thinks he sees the real Santa, “I know him!” Actually it’s James who knows him best; Robert tutored him in Latin when they were at school. We both enjoyed his talk and then introduced ourselves to him at the book signing afterwards. After we had explained who we were he became quite enthusiastic to meet us and the three of us went for a coffee and a chat. We were telling him that we have some of his early poetry books and had liked one of his poems which mentioned Cambuslang. He happened to have a copy of his latest book of poetry with him, which had another poem about Cambuslang! He insisted on inscribing it and giving it to us; we were thrilled.
By this time thunder and lightning had been followed by torrential rain, through which we had to run back to Waverley Station. We read Robert’s poem on the train home and I thought that it was very good; it was strange to read about his childhood memories of our own neighbourhood.