Borders Book Festival - Five Star

Yesterday I spent the day at the Frank Knight Schools Gala Day, part of the Borders Book Festival at Melrose.

The programme said:

"For the first time the education team at Historic Scotland have combined forces
with the Borders Book Festival to make the School’s Gala Day even more exciting.
They knew that Joan Lennon was going to make an appearance at the Festival
to talk about her wonderful series The Wickit Chronicle, which is set in an Abbey
and thought, “we look after a real Abbey, so we should team up and make a
whole day of activities around Joan’s talk”.

The Book Festival Abbey Day activities and times are:

A Day in the Life of a Monk
Brother Francis will be making a visit from the twelfth century to tell pupils what
life was like for a monk at Melrose Abbey and all about the preparations he is
making to go on a crusade to the Holy land.

Story-telling Session
Mary Kenny the Borders based story-teller will be introducing a new collection
of stories about the Abbey and events that have taken place there over the
centuries.

Abbey Tour
Frank Burrell who looks after Melrose Abbey all year round and Jane Gaze who
is the Learning Officer at the Abbey will show pupils around the Abbey and let
them see the interesting artefacts in the Abbey Life Handling Box."

It was WONDERFUL! I had such a nice day and could not have been more made-welcome which if it isn't a word, should be. The kids were delightful, the grown-ups were lovely, the food was great - and I had enough time to take part in some of the sessions in the Abbey (which is so gorgeous I'm going to do another post on carvings as soon as I finish this one.) So often you just have to get back in the car or back on a train as soon as you've done your bit, but I had the chance this time to catch my breath and be plied with terrific food and buckets of coffee and feel as if I'd BEEN to the Festival instead of just being in it.

It was great, so thank you Borders Book Festival for having me - and please PLEASE ask me back!

Cheers, Joan.

P.S. I'm at the Chateau de Lavigny for the next three weeks. I will TRY to blog from there but I'm not entirely sure how easy that's going to be ... so if you don't hear from me for a bit, that's why. I'll be back in Scotland again on 12th July, and (if the delayed post thingumy option has worked) on ABBA on 2nd July. Meantime, I hope you have a good summer. Unless you leave in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case, have a good winter.