This evening and weekend we are once again attending the wonderful, unpredictable, beautiful and sometimes wet Home County Music and Art Festival, originally known as the Home County Folk Festival, or the Home County Soak Festival, depending who you are asking. We have a history there. Our first public “shop” was a 10 x 10 tent along Artisan’s Alley. We lived across the street at the time in the Centennial Apartments (still one of the best buildings downtown for size and value) and we lugged boxes across Wellington on a dolly to set up our booth, offering our bathroom to friends who didn’t want to use the Porta Potty. We actually set up our booth INSIDE our apartment first to make sure everything was beautiful and worked right. (Again, those apartments are big) and the image above is from the final night of our first weekend attending as booksellers. That is our living room lamp plugged into Vic Park power.
Every year after has been wonderful. We saw friends. Got secretly day drunk. Had friends play music. Had friends get high. Shared booths with Anarkiti, Bread and Roses, and the Friends of the Public Library. Got COMPLETELY rained out one year as the tent we had bought could not stand up to Southwestern Ontario thunderstorms (see Paterson Ewen) and a good chunk of our inventory was destroyed. We wept and cursed nature. However, it did not stop us. We were back the next year, proper tent struck, and chilled with friends again. This is where we thought of our book bus. Home County seems to really bring out the community of London, and it inspires ideas, hopeful ones, that we ACTUALLY do. There’s something about listening to the Grapes of Wrath at 9pm on a hot summer night in the middle of downtown, Vic Park sweet and mysterious, that makes a point in life’s sequence to simply watch and take stock. We love it. This is why we are doing it again.
This year we are bringing our book bus downtown, partnering with Bread and Roses again, for a delightful Booksellers Row of awesome, literary magic. We’ll be there sipping Arizona Iced tea, high on shrooms (likely not, but who knows) setting down the ridiculous, fraught past year behind us. The bus will be loaded with amazing books. We’ll pretend that we’ve found a secret, beautiful place where London’s weird heart beats freely. You are invited. We truly hope to see you there.
Much love,
Jason and Vanessa
