Goats! The Winner Is The Woolly Goats...

Long, good day today,with two readings at The Wigtown Book Festival - the first with The Crichton Writers (in a bookshop) and the second a Venti launch (in a yurt!) together with Vivien Jones, who was launching About Time, Too . Yeah, I know, but these were the Wigtown launches.

However, much bigger things were happening back in Mid-Nithsdale, as at 3pm the winners of the ThornhillArts Competition were announced.

The winner was...
Cuban's Goats! Or Scottish Blackface Sheep, as we call them here.

The judge was Claire Melinsky, a rather famous illustrator - http://claremelinsky.co.uk/
She's just done the cover illustrations for the new editions of all the Harry Potters, to be published in November this year. Her husband, Ronald Turnbull - http://www.ronaldturnbull.co.uk/home.html - is a very renowned writer in hillwalking and other bonkers outdoor pursuits circles, as well as the fittest man in the world. Like proper fit. I asked him a few years back to recreate a famous walk the African explorer, Joseph Thomson, undertook in his youth - from Thornhill to Edinburgh over the hills (Southern Upland Way, Pentlands, that's over 80 miles) in under twenty-four hours. He agreed, and I was his support vehicle - meeting at pre-arranged locations with provisions (mainly tinned rice pudding, Ronald's recommendation for the endurance walker). He did it, because when Ronald hillwalks he actually hilljogs. Jogs for 24 hours solid. Uphill. Downhill. In driving rain. Proper fit. Anyway, that's a whole other story I'll tell one day, back to the competition.

The winner.


As I had to send my deputy reporters, I'm afraid I don't know his name. The deputy-reporter/chief-driver also managed to arrive late, which meant they had to reannounce the names of two of Highly Commended artists.

Because huzzah! I was one of the four, five or six (numbers unclear due to lack of note taking - basic error!) Highly Commended, with this picture


And for Jane, this was my other entry

T1 accepted the certificate, because even bigger huzzah!, T2 got a Highly Commended in the Children's section with this picture

And here's T1's entry

The winner of the Children's section was this wonderful picture of Cample Viaduct

and here are the other fab entries. The cottage one, shown first, also got a Highly Commended.

To give you a general impression of the whole exhibition:

Meanwhile, in the entrance hall outside, two stunning works of art hung in isolation.

Disqualified because... the poor would-be entrants' stupid mother failed to read the rules properly and notice that all children's entries had to be either A4 or A3.

Ah well, we liked where they hung them.

I reckon the winners of a copy each of Venti ought to be A Cuban in London, Jane of Moxey Musings, and also Wigeon because she actually recognised the type and breed of animal in the winning picture. And I owe her Mum a copy of one, as she inspired one of the poems in the book.

Please address any challenges to this arbitrary judgement to me, but I reckon I've at least worked out who definitely didn't win.

Would these three be kind enough to e-mail me at TitusmckayATaolDOTcom with their addresses? Then the prizes will be in the post!

Now, Foxy's revving the engine, I bet there are people in the back already and I've had my idea! Just got to write it...

Dog-tired.