It's that time of year again

The highlight of my year has come round again! Working in the bookshop at the Borders Book Festival. I've been here since Thursday morning, when we had a deluge of schoolchildren and rain, but no dampened spirits! EVERYONE loves the BBF, staff and guest speakers alike. And we have some stomping good speakers this year!

There are no two ways about it. This is just the best book festival in the UK. Apart from anything else, where else do you get a book festival in a vegetable garden? The grounds of Harmony House in Melrose are dreamy. Delicious scents from the flowerbeds and shrubberies and beautiful views to the hills around the town. I just love being here!

Judy Murray came to the bookshop, during a quiet moment, to sign a huge pile of books before she gave her talk in the evening.

And Melvyn Bragg needed a little help with removing the microphone wiring after his talk.

This morning we have wonderful blue skies overhead and there will be hundreds of families coming to the book festival throughout the day. I will be on my feet from nine in the morning until eleven o'clock tonight, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else!!

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In a vase on Monday - colour

The intense colours in my vase this week come from nasturtiums, sweetpeas and a single glorious zinnia! Their beauty and love of life speak for themselves and need no further words from me! Enjoy!

Colonsay postcards - on arrival

The first thing I do, once we have unpacked our car, which has been groaning with all the stuff we need for a week's stay in the holiday cottage, is head for the outer gardens of Colonsay House. It is a place of wonder for me! I particularly love the leaves of the giant rhododendrons. There are many different varieties, all planted in the early 1930s. The outer gardens are generally overgrown, having had little tending over the decades. That makes them even more magical! The old woodmill falls apart a little more every year, but that's fine by me because I love corrugated iron and especially if it's rusted! And of course the bees. Colonsay's beekeeper, Andrew Abrahams, has one of his apiaries on the edge of the pine wood. So lovely - the hum of busy bees and the heady smell of the pines. We are here - finally! Delayed by four months by the wretched virus, but now I am on holiday! Hooray!

Found items IAVOM

I am on holiday on the Inner Hebridean island of Colonsay. It is my happy place. Thoughts of Colonsay rattle around in my head each and every day I am not here! I haven't got a vase to share this week but some lovely things I have found over the past few days, which are just as beautiful as a vase of flowers! I hope you agree! Here are some leaves of giant rhododendrons, growing in the outer gardens of Colonsay House. Some skeleton leaves of magnolia. The dried stem of a kelp seaweed. A couple of conkers (can never resist those!), and a branch heavily populated by a number of lichens. The air on Colonsay is so clean that lichens flourish here!

the running wave

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