For the fourth year in a row the Ebury team decamped from Ebury Towers for the weekend and set up camp in the wilds of rural Suffolk to take part in Latitude Festival! Braving the rain and mud were members of our Publicity, Marketing and Editorial teams and of course a selection of our bravest authors.

Joining us in our tent in the Faraway Forest for our Eccentrically English themed weekend we had Stuart Maconie regaling us with hilarious tales of Britain from Hope and Glory, Mark Thomas drew the crowds for his talk on Extreme Rambling, Miles Jupp chatted to us about cricket and his latest book, Fibber in the Heat.

     Suzannah Lipscomb fascinated the forest with her Tudor facts taken from, A Visitor’s Companion to Tudor England and Lucy Edge calmed us and helped us find our centre with yoga classes in the main arena with an introductory reading from her charming memoir, The Handbag and Wellies Yoga Club. Vintage author, Adele Nozedar took groups of festival goers off foraging into the forest with top tips from her book, The Hedgerow Handbook and Tony Wrighton persuaded, relaxed and made us all confident in only a minute.

The lovely Lisa Comfort, our Sew Over It author, created a beautiful patchwork quilt with the help of festival goers, teaching them the techniques needed to hand stitch or machine sew their own part of the design.

 There were loads of things going on in the Ebury Library to ensure that passersby always had a chance to get involved. All weekend people dressed up and had their photograph taken in the Ebury Photobooth, if you’d like to see the pictures they have all been uploaded to the brand new Ebury Tumblr site: eburyphotobooth.tumblr.com

Embracing the Eccentrically English theme we hosted a festival tea party in the forest, giving out scones with jam and cream and a cup of tea to everyone for a much needed sugar boost!

The festival is a melting pot of literature, music, art, drama, poetry, dance and general creativity so to take advantage of all those flowing creative juices we provided art materials and paper for our visitors to write short stories, scribble down poems and sketch us some pretty pictures. Here are a few of our favourites:

 Thank you to all who came to say hello and got stuck in with all the activities, listened and chatted to our authors and sat under the canopy enjoying some peace and quiet, we hope you had as brilliant a time as we did!

 Check out the video we filmed over the weekend featuring our authors, activities and lovely Library visitors!

 See you next year!

 Jen - Marketing Assistant

I’ve always enjoyed gardening and for the past few years have been growing tomatoes, courgettes and peppers. This year Alys Fowler’s new book The Edible Garden has inspired me to raise the bar and branch out into potatoes, garlic, salads and strawberries. I’ve also started a herb garden.

Because I rent my flat all my edibles have to be grown in pots but that doesn’t mean they have to look boring. I’m growing Night Scented Stocks amongst my salad leaves and will be planting Lobelia in with the garlic.

I’ve already used some of the herbs in cooking and can’t wait to harvest the rest.

Have you planted anything out yet?

Hannah - Publicity Manager

Find out more about Alys Fowler’s The Edible Garden

If you look to the heavens this Saturday (4 September) you will see the Harvest Moon – a sure sign that Autumn is just around the corner. In Jane Struthers’ fascinating volume of countryside wisdom, Red Sky at Night, she explains:

“The harvest moon is the full moon that appears closest to the autumn equinox (20 or 21 September), and the hunter’s moon is the full moon that appears in the following month (October). Both are special because they rise on successive evenings more quickly than the other moons of the year. This means there is a shorter period of darkness between sunset and moonrise, so there is more light outside for farmers and hunters to do their work.

“They look larger than other moons because they hang lower in the sky, thanks to the Earth’s tilt at this time of year, and they can look redder because the light of the moon is seen through the vast number of particles that are in the atmosphere closest to the Earth.”

And did you know that January’s moon is called the Wolf Moon, and June’s either the Mead or Strawberry Moon? This beautiful book is overflowing with facts like these that were once common knowledge. Dip into the spreads below and remind yourself of life before the internet and blogs (or even electricity).

Charlotte – Senior Commissioning Editor

Since April 2008, we have been running a competition through the David Attenborough website. Entrants had to e-mail in a photo that related to one of the 5 Life themes: Life in Cold Blood, The Life of Mammals, Life in the Undergrowth, The Private Life of Plants and The Life of Birds. We had a great response to the competition, with some fantastic entries, making it quite hard to choose the winner. However, finalists from each category have now been shortlisted and put on to Flickr. The shortlisted photographs have been sent to Sir David who will choose 2 runners up from each category and an overall winner. The 10 runners up will receive a copy of the Life in Cold Blood book and DVD and the overall winner will win the book and DVD as well as a Canon Digital IXUS i7 camera.

To see the shortlisted entries, visit flickr.

To find out more about the Life series and Sir David and to submit your nature photos to the online gallery, visit the David Attenborough website.

Clare - Senior Marketing Executive

The oceans are the single most important feature of our planet - they shape the climate, our culture and our future. Yet we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about Earth’s watery depths. The new BBC series and the accompanying book draws on the most exciting stories from the fields of sub-aquatic archaeology, geology, marine biology and anthropology.

To whet your appetite, we asked Paul Rose, who is a presenter on the series and one of the book’s authors, to share some of Oceans’ amazing facts with us. Over 1,000 dives, the filming produced a number of ‘firsts’ – not least the discovery of a whole new species! It’s going to be an amazing series, and a fantastic book – here are Paul’s highlights…

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