We’ve been fairly busy since Peggy flew in from Pittsburgh on Wednesday, but today we had a lazy day after such a tiring one on Saturday when we went to the antiques fair at Ingliston in Edinburgh and also to the huge booksale at St Andrew’s and St George’s church in Edinburgh’s George Street. If you’re in the city you should look in there, it continues until the end of the week I believe.

So today I had time to catch up with the Guardian’s Review section, here are a few articles which I found interesting.

In this article some well known authors write about the children’s books which shaped their imaginations.

I was really interested in this article by Julia Blackburn about John Craske, a little-known Norfolk artist who turned to embroidery in later life.

You probably heard that the crime writer Ruth Rendell died during the week. Jeanette Winterson and Val McDermid write about her here.

On Friday we went to visit the crime writer James Oswald on his farm in Fife and he was very generous with his time, showing us his sheep and Highland cattle. I hope to have some photos from that visit to show you soon.