Bibliophiles at Clunes

Back to Booktown weekend at Clunes. This year I went with a fellow bibliophile and we spent all Saturday just looking at books, poking down laneways and enjoying the old buildings.

Beginning at the Town hall we went all around the town. It took us four hours and we checked out every bookseller.  This is an antiquarian and second-hand bookselling event. The choices range from $1 books from the library sale to breathtakingly rare old books. In between there are the desirable books. I yearned over a collection of Cecil Beaton's black and white photos of Japan.

It gets tiring looking at books

 We ate sausages from the RSL stall and we finally sat down to a cuppa in the RSL hall itself.

It seemed right, so near to ANZAC day, and we'd already paid our respects to the guardian with his fresh new wreaths.

Many of the buildings are restored, but others are old and worn and touching beautiful.

I can never resist an alley

We mostly just looked and enjoyed, but I found a few  special books and a jar of crab apple jam.

Then back home through the mild evening, peering in at gardens.

and being warned off forbidden fruit.

Planning on moving to Clunes? This would be a good place.

Or here, up a long and unpainted staircase, wooden treads worn in the centre,

to a lace-curtained apartment above the town.