Biggar, better.

Skeins of geese are flying north, the snowdrops are out and rising sap in the larch trees means they are beginning to redden up: spring is well on its way. It was a glorious sunny morning for a book-led drive down the Clyde valley to Biggar via Crawford, my distribution point for 48 copies of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold to long distance lorry drivers on World Book Night on March 5. Alan in the shop advised me to try two places, and I started at Heatherghyll where the proprietor was most helpful . On to the excellent Atkinson-Pryce bookshop in Biggar which has doubled in size since I last visited, now with a very pretty reading corner complete with gas fire, armchairs and coffee. The World Book Night books are being delivered to Atkinson-Pryce whose proprietors Chris and Sue were both in, plus Chris's black labrador puppy, when I arrived around 11am. As we were discussing WBN and the Moffat Book Event with the D.E.Stevenson book launch on April 16, in came Bella Bathhurst author of a history of bicycles due out in March. One of her earlier books, on lighthouses by coincidence has a Stevenson connection. Dashed off to meet a geologist up the Daer road to discuss the quality of local slate for a concrete poetry project - details to be announced.