Finding the Book Festival

A quick visit to the book festival with showers and new stories

I am loving the new location for the book festival at Quartermile, just over Middle Meadow Walk if heading over from all the festival fun at George Square.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the previous Art College location as it was quite dark and spread out but here in the square it is open and bright and everything seems easy to find, it reminds me of the wonderful Charlotte Square years.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival is on from the 10th to the 25th August so only a few days left but I would encourage you to go grab a bite to eat and soak up the atmosphere. Surrounded by the old and the new, the Edinburgh Futures Institute is in the recently developed former Royal Infirmary Hospital building so you will see old turrets mixed with large glass and steel structures.

I was determined to find the new location and so set off across the Meadows with my children in what was one of their last days of the school holidays. After a couple of wrong turns and a wander around George Square we found the book festival entrance just around the corner from Starbucks on the Middle Meadow Walk. A place we all know well from my boy’s time in Sick Kids many years ago.

It was nice to be back and I had a fleeting thought at how lucky we were to be happy and healthy and with the Sketcher Twins now into S2 at high school.

We sat on the picnic seats and I made a quick sketch, we brought our own lunch although there were plenty of independent pop ups available and they did smell yummy, especially the pizza van. And then the rain fell and we spent all the money we had saved on food on books instead.

A lovely day to end the holidays. The sketch below is before I added the water. I drew the initial drawing with a fountain pen and then teased out the ink in places using a waterbrush.

The sketch before I added the water wash.