Not Going to Bologna
For the past two years I’ve made the Picture Book pilgrimage to Bologna Book Fair. It’s an extraordinary thing to witness, in equal parts inspiring and overwhelming. I wrote about it here if you’re interested. But for a variety of reasons I decided this year to give it a miss.
Predicting crippling FOMO, my friends Anna Wilson, Ella Beech and I decided instead to have a mini retreat for the duration of the Fair. Anna lives in Edinburgh, Ella and I are based in the South East, so we needed somewhere easily accessible from both, and landed on Matlock in Derbyshire.
Matlock is a sweet town with lots of charity shops and a pretty train station. You can walk over the hills to the nearby village of Matlock Bath which has an even prettier train station and pretends to be a seaside resort with ice cream and fish and chip shops, arcades and an eyewateringly expensive cable car.
We sketched the high street and were approached by lots of curious and friendly visitors who felt obliged to comment on our outputs.
On our second day, Anna spotted that we could take a direct bus to the Chatsworth Estate which is home to a gargantuan Baroque stately home set in 100 acres of gardens and filled with treasures which are very pleasing to draw and not unreminiscent of some of Bologna’s masterpieces.
We walked, sketched, cooked, didn’t drink, pretended we were in Bologna, and talked about our careers, dreams, frustrations and how to handle anxiety (I’ve been having mentally anxious episodes recently).
It was the most nourishing three days I can imagine. I returned home with a spring in my step and without a Bologna hangover. I probably will go to Bologna next year, but I ALSO want to do another mini retreat…
Your “bad” drawing of Ella is SO Ella! I think it’s awesome, you’ve got her character down to a T 🙌
Brilliant as always my Ruble! Xxx