Edinburgh: City of Literature but not Bookshops

The Edinburgh International Book Festival has set up shop in a shared garden a few blocks from us. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that tickets for anything in this festival season have to be booked well in advance so a lot of the authors I wanted to see were sold out by the time I got my act together. Fortunately, it's been mostly the adult events that have been sold out, so I've still been able to indulge my love of children's and Young Adult books. I've gone to two sessions with Chicken House authors Cornelia Funke and Gill Arbuthnott and both of them have been accompanied by their publisher, Barry Cunningham famous for not rejecting J.K. Rowling's novel when it came across his desk. Trivia fact, Cunningham got his start in the book industry by dressing up as a giant puffin.

The other great thing about the book fest is that they've put together an amazing bookstore on site, actually two, one for adults and the other for non-adults. Having access to a great independent bookshop even if it is only for 2 weeks has been a reminder of just how barren the bookshop scene is in Edinburgh, despite it being a UNESCO City of Literature. While there are loads of independent second-hand booksellers, not to mention the charity bookshops, I've only managed to find two independent booksellers who sell brand new books. Word Power Books is the Octopus Books equivalent here, only it takes itself way too seriously. The other independent is a speculative fiction bookstore here, Transreal Fiction, which is a plus for someone who is a speculative fiction fan and writer. However, I read more than SF.

Unfortunately, the bookshops that I've really bonded with have been ones I've met while away from home. I found an amazing bookstore on the Old Square of Prague that had a wall of English-language books. They stocked just about every book I'd ever read and loved as well as just about every book I've wanted to read. However, my very favourite bookshop so far has been Kew Bookshop, a wee place near the London Underground stop for Kew Gardens.

Closer to home but still not close enough, on our recent trip to the Borders area of Scotland, I kept stumbling across bookstores that I'd love to have access to on a weekly basis: The Forest Bookstore in Selkirk, Talisman Books in Melrose, The Main Street Trading Company in St Boswells, and Latimer Books in Kelso. I may be forced to take the two hour bus journey down to the Borders every month or so to soak in those new book vibes.

Borders Walking Vacation - The Beer

(This is the third of three blog entries on our recent walking trip to the Scottish Borders.)

In addition to great walking and scenery, our trip to the Scottish Borders was also a great opportunity to experience some good local ale. This meant good access to cask ales - as faithful readers of this blog will no doubt know.

Day 1 - The Fox and Hounds Inn (Denholm) - 4-5 cask ale taps, though only two active: Ossian Ale and Wylam Gold Tankard. Observant readers will recall my previous sampling of Ossian, hence I opted for a tasty pint of the Tankard.

Day 2 - The Crosskeys Inn (Selkirk) - 2 cask ale taps, serving Theakston's Old Peculier and Black Sheep Best Bitter. I'd previously tried (though not blogged about) Old Peculier, so opted for a pint of the Bitter. While it was a reasonable ale, I'm starting to learn that bitter beers are not my favourite.

Day 3 - The George and Abbottsford Hotel (Melrose) - 3 cask ale taps, though only two active: Houston Warlock Stout and Inveralmond's Thrappledouser. We'd previously visited the George and Abbottsford on our shorter Borders holiday, at which time we bought some local bottled beer. Knowing they were beer connaisseurs, we stopped here for lunch. Not only was 'on tap' ale excellent, but so too was the food. So, we went back for supper as well. Obviously, I tried both ales, having a strong personal preference for the stout.

Day 4 - Buccleuch Arms Hotel (St. Boswells) - 1 cask ale tap, serving Stewart's Edinburgh Gold. Anticipating that both the food and beer couldn't top our previous day's experience, I was pleasantly surprised by the Edinburgh Gold.

Day 5 - The Cobbles Inn (Kelso) - 2 cask ale taps, serving Stewart's Edinburgh No 3 and Newcastle Pioneer Bitter (not to be confused with Newcastle Brown Ale). The No 3 was similar to the Gold, and reasonably tasty. I tried only a sample of the bitter to remind me of my apparent dislike of bitters.

Here endeth our 3-part blog series on our Scottish Borders vacation.

Borders Walking Vacation - The Towns

(This is the second of three blog entries on our recent walking trip to the Scottish Borders.)

Our recent walking trip in the Scottish Borders gave us a good opportunity to see several Borders towns up close. We started in Jedburgh, which is only 10 miles from the English border. Since Jedburgh served as the start and end of our journey, we didn't end up spending much time there. From our photos, you can see the ruins of the Jedburgh Abbey.

Hawick was a town that felt like it had a little rougher edge to it. I don't know what it was exactly, perhaps the abundance of ne'er-do-well's around town, or that a number of places looked to be permanently closed. Or maybe that the Scottish pronounciation of the town name sounds like one is 'horking a loogie.' It did seem to have a lot of woolen mills though. On the way to Hawick, we walked through Denholm, where patrons at the local watering hole seemed surprised to see tourists. They were friendly enough though and it seemed like a nice town.

Selkirk looked a lot like some of the other towns, except that there seemed to be less to do and see. It also seems to have a big wool reputation. It's a strange thing though: while we've seen lots of sheep, and wool clothing production here, there doesn't seem to be a lot of local wool for sale. Melrose was similar to Selkirk, except that there was more to see. The downside was that there were also more tourists. We had visited Melrose previously as part of an earlier Borders vacation.

To give ourselves a short day on our way from Melrose we slept over in the village of St Boswells, not much to say about it. Other than a great looking independent bookstore with a cafe (unfortunately we didn't see it until after hours), there's not really much to St. Boswell's.

The highlight of our trip was Kelso. A busy and bustling town with lots of tourists but with lots of locals as well. The people in Kelso were also by far the friendliest, and that's saying a lot 'cause Borders folk are friendly. For me (AJW), Kelso had just about everything a town needs to have in the way of services: an organic vegetarian cafe that sells organic cotton clothing, a health food store that sells gluten-free food that I haven't even seen in Edinburgh, a library with a quiet outdoor courtyard where you can go and read in the sunshine, and a great independent bookstore, for Mike there were also lots of pubs with cask ales. Unfortunately, Kelso is a two-hour bus ride from Edinburgh, the closest major place of employment, so not really the best location in that respect.

Highlights of our trip, from the town side:

• Most picturesque spot: Dryburgh Abbey
• Best meal: a tie between The George and Abbotsford Hotel in Melrose, and the Queen's Head Hotel Restaurant in Kelso
• Best historical site: Abbotsford House, which still houses the intact library of Sir Walter Scott, a collection that Giles would be proud to consult
• Best B and B: hands down the Edenbank House outside of Kelso, this was luxury accomodation in an old Victorian mansion.
• Best beer (and cider): also The George and Abbotsford Hotel

Borders Walking Vacation - The Walk

(This is the first of three blog entries on our recent walking trip to the Scottish Borders.)

Last week, Alette and I took a 6-day vacation to the Scottish Borders that consisted of a walk of just over 100 km along the Borders Abbeys Way. Our accommodation and baggage transfer were organized by Make Tracks (who subcontracted the baggage transfer to Walking Support). We've been on similar vacations in England before - the Ridgeway in 2003 and part of the South West Coast Path in 2004, both organized by Contours Walking - but this was our first time in Scotland. We really like these vacations since they offer wonderful scenery, great exercise, are very relaxing, and require very little decision making during the trip since the itinerary is set for you in advance.

Our trip took us through several Borders towns and was broken down as follows:

• Jedburgh to Hawick (23 km)
• Hawick to Selkirk (19 km)
• Selkirk to Melrose (16 km)
• Melrose to St Boswells (10 km)
• St Boswells to Kelso (19 km)
• Kelso to Jedburgh (22 km)
  

Since Jedburgh is only a 2-hour (local) bus ride from Edinburgh, we didn't need any accommodation on either the first or last legs. However, this meant that we had to carry all of our luggage on our own on these days - a good test for when we decide to forgo the baggage transfer option all together on a future walking trip. It was also nice to have shorter days in the middle of our route, allowing our muscles to adjust and recover, and allowing us to do a bit more sight-seeing.

To our surprise, despite the relatively short distances travelled, the landscape was quite varied on each day. We saw rolling hills, meandering rivers, farmer's fields, thick forests, and numerous animals including cows, bulls (only 2), horses, geese, rabbits, a stoat carrying the head of a rabbit, chickens, pigs, sheep, and several kinds of birds. On two occasions we encountered sheep that had strayed from their enclosure, including once when they felt trapped and went charging past us to get back to their point of escape. As for the weather, despite the forecasts we fared surprisingly well. A spot of rain on a few days, but when the heavy rains did come we were usually in our hotel or B&B. Having been in Scotland for almost a year, we've now learned that you don't get 'sunny days' or 'rainy days' but rather days that somehow cover multiple weather possibilities.

As per usual, click on the picture above to see our collection of photos. Up next is part two of three - a blog entry about the towns we visited along our route.