Resting on our Laurels

We wish.

After the Reading Quest Children's Party last Saturday, we had four events this week (not counting our regular storytime on Thursday afternoon). Even for us, this is a bit rediculous and, as you can imagine, we're really enjoying the luxury of having two days off in a row for the bank holiday.

On Tuesday we celebrated Kipper's Birthday with a big party in the shop and garden.

The children who filled the garden waited patiently, put on their Kipper Ears and waitied patiently through the games and stories...but let's face it, there was only one thing they were all waiting for:
Alison had baked one of her amazing cakes. And her reputation is spreading, so lots of eager little hands crowded round for a piece. Cake was to feature heavily later in the week (he said, cunningly foreshadowing this post...).

On Thursday, I went with local science fiction author Ben Jeapes for an event at John Mason School.
The event took the format of two workshops, and whilst I skulked around at the back ready to sell books, Ben got the kids imagining their own alternative worlds and bizarre lifeforms. The creative energy and ideas flung up during the day were impressive - and surprising. Ben has written a great post about the workshop over on his blog.

Friday night we had our first wine event at the shop. Richard Liwicki of our local award-winning Bothy Vineyard hosted a brilliant tasting session of Bothy wines:

We also welcomed David Harvey. He is a young, gifted new author who is incredibly passionate about British wine. He talked about and signed copies of his new book Grape Britain. I'll post about this seperately - it was a fantastic evening - but here's a shot of the author during the signing:

Once we'd cleared the shop up it was rather late - but no time to rest, because we were back in early on Saturday to prepare for a big party to say thank you to everyone in and around Abingdon who helped us win our award.

We served champagne all day. Our new mayor mayor (newly elected last week) Patrick Lonergan, came at 11am for the big event - cutting the cake - accompanied by the town crier.(Note the high-tech Blackberry with his speech on it - very impressive). Abingdon mayors have a tradition of having specific themes for their term, and Pat's is focused on town centre safety and vitality, which chimes nicely with small independent shops.

We toasted The Queen, Abingdon and Mostly Books. Again, all the children there were waiting patiently, but Ben here isn't fooling anyone (despite a pair of Kipper's Ears we found in the back of the shop):
He's waiting for the main event - the cake:

Thanks to everyone who came on Saturday to make it a very special day for Nicki and I. We collapsed Saturday night, exhausted but extremely happy. Thank you to everyone.