The Garden Cottage Diaries was officially launched on March 4th in Keswick, Cumbria, at the Ways With Words literary festival, whose speakers this year included Melvyn Bragg, Sandi Toksvig, Lionel Shriver, Ed Stourton, Helen Dunmore, Kate Adie, Jenni Murray, Polly Toynbee, Michael Buerk and more.

Fiona's fascinating, sell-out illustrated talk was enthusiastically received by a lively audience whose Q&A ranged across topics from herbal remedies to Enlightenment literature. It was followed by a celebration in the gallery at the festival venue, Theatre by the Lake, which is dramatically set on the shore of Derwentwater and the shadow of the majestic Cumbrian fells, which were snow-capped and sunlit on this crisp early-spring day. An auspicious start indeed!

The photos show Fiona preparing for her talk at Borders, Glasgow, showing some of her cottage artefacts to Saraband's editorial assistant Sara Myers; and keen readers queueing with books for Fiona to sign after her talk in Keswick.