The Aardvark Blog

Art, Art and a little food too!
6/09/2015

Back from a really enjoyable break on the North Norfolk Coast ( Burnham Overy Sleathe - a small village that Nelson wanted to retire to, before events at Trafalgar intervened), to a maelstrom of art and activity. Friday was a very busy day with conversations with three artists over their submissions for our H.Art show that starts next Saturday. I am really excited by the mix that we are going to have this year, and can't wait to see what it looks like when it is all up. Shannon Donovan and Andrew Eastwood have kindly agreed to take time off from their own H.Art show to do the planning and some of the hanging here. On the subject of art yesterday after work I caught the end of the Private View of Yvonne Crossley's new work at the Drawing Gallery. I often pop in to see Yvonne when I am passing her door, and we have a companionable Earl Grey together. For the last few years I have been banned from the main gallery, whilst she developed her work, so when I saw the show it really did come as a revelation. I couldn't resist buying one of her prints - and judging by the red dots mine I was not the only one to give in to temptation. Speaking of art yesterday a number of artists popped in having been to Yvonne's show including Russell Morris who showed here recently in our 'Crossing the Border' show, and Stephen Cox RA who showed a few pieces when we had our weekend devoted to the Mappa Mundi in May. But art is never allowed to disrupt the flow of books for long, and I have been adding new stock to our groaning shelves, including a number of new railway books and some history and mountaineering titles. Lots more to put on this week including several hundred Folio Society Volumes. I am already thinking about the Frankfurt Bookfair next month, so there will be even more books to come quite shortly. Next weekend in addition to launching our H.Art show we will also be doing the book signings at the Ludlow Food Fair all weekend. I am told that Luis Troyano is a very funny and talented cook, so hopefully we will not be bringing back many of the boxes that we take into the Inner Bailey. Two welsh customers have just come to the front desk with a pile of history books, and we found ourselves talking about Swansea and some of the greats that have come from that area ( after much shaking of the head about Wales latest Rugby injuries). Communing over a mutual regard for Dylan Thomas, tears came to our eyes when we discussed his wonderful 'Child's Christmas in Wales'. Such moments are why I run this shop, and they give me more pleasure than anything else we do here. Finally an apology to any customers who ended up waiting too long in the Café on Bank Holiday Monday. The weather was so dull that the usual split of customers between our catering outlets didn't happen and the Café got a little overwhelmed. We are looking at our processes and have some changes to make that should help in similar situations in the future. We are not perfect, but customer satisfaction is very important to us and we try to ensure that we learn from all experiences good and bad. So many apologies, and be assured that we have written ourselves a report that says 'could do better'.