The Aardvark Blog

Come celebrate the real spirit of Christmas at Aardvark Books
30/11/2020

I actually had a day off yesterday and as happens when I get a few hours away from the swirl of the bookshop and the other demands of my life, it set me off thinking about this year and about what my hopes are for the year to come.

And strangely given all that has gone on I do have a lot of hope that there will be some positive changes over the next year or two. I was looking at the Mid Wales Arts website yesterday and seeing how great the new look Presteigne Assembly rooms look. And we also have the prospect of the Ludlow Assembly Rooms finally re-opening next year. And by the middle of 2020 we may all actually be to go to these places, meet up with friends, listen to live music and maybe even watch a movie or two.

If you are like me then you will be really really glad to step away from the virtual world to the real world. Live music is brilliant. Even recordings of live concerts have an extraordinary creativity that the recording studio cannot match. I was also watching my lockdown favourite Rick Beato go through a recent Spotify Top 10 and time and again the thing he was praising was the production. This is a lot like going to a play and praising the scenery. Its not nothing, but its not much either.

Real art changes lives. Every day when I settle down on my sofa I can see a vase made by Phil Rogers that I bought when we had our great ceramics exhibition some years ago. Every time I marvel at it, everytime I wonder at its beauty, subtlety and profundity. For the last year we have been stopped from having new in the flesh interactions with art and there is simply no substitute for that experience.

We have a great bookshop full of fantastic books - many of which have hit the shelves since we closed up at the beginning of the month. Whilst we are still allowed to be open you have a chance to come and see them. And we have tons of new Christmas card and even new Christmas gift wrap on the way. Come celebrate the real this Christmas at Aardvark Books. A real welcome, a real - maybe in my case too real and certainly too long haired - bookselling team, real decorations, maybe even at some point real mulled wine. And to any of you who are unable to come because you are still shielding - our thoughts are with you. We will be together again soon friends, we will be together again I promise you.