Lovely weekend away - great friends, great hotel, great time all round, and we can all claim to be experts on gin distilling now! Unwilling to let the weekend end too soon, N and I stopped off on our way home at Polesden Lacey and enjoyed a wander around the house and garden there. No joy in their second-hand bookstore, but there was an exhibition in the house of Luke Adam Hawker's recent work (see his website here). We'd met Luke before at a Craft show (I think at Hever) and bought his first book 'Together', along with one of his artworks (of doors), so very pleased to take the opportunity to get his new book 'The Last Tree'.
A slow start to 2025 for posting, but certainly not a slow start for reading. More of that later, but this post is a report of Saturday afternoon's excursion along Rochester High Street and some pleasing finds. A separate post will be required for the previous weekend's trip to Hythe and Dymchurch. Along the High Street in the charity shops, in Baggins, and in Shop 104, I was lucky enough to find: The latest Kate Atkinson Jackson Brodie in brand new paperback, in a special independent bookshop edition with sprayed black edges. Yes, I know I was lucky enough to go and get a 'signed' edition (well, stamped due to wrist problems) of the hardback first edition from the author herself, but that's hardly the point. Certain books need to be owned many-times over. Three more Elly Griffiths paperbacks for the collection - two Brighton Mysteries and one Ruth Galloway and, as it turns out, the first Ruth Galloway, which was a bonus. A first printing of Trigger Mortis in paperb...