Mainstreet Trading Company is run by Rosamund de la Hay and is one of those cosy, charming worlds of their own that instinctively make me think of books. For Rosamund, I think it would have to be a Lucy Dillon-novel (If she has a dog. But surely you can’t live i St Boswells and not have one?) She used to work in publishing in London, moved to St Boswell, tried to commute for a few years, and eventually opened a bookshop instead. The biggest difference? “Well, the job is a lot more physically demanding than publishing, I can tell you that.” (Books are heavy, as any bookseller knows, or any Swedish author who travels around the country picking up more of them).

Bookshops are the most important part of any town, but in the case of St Boswell, situated in the beautiful landscape of the Scottish Borders, it practically is the town. There’s a Chinese restaurant, and a deli, but since the deli is run by the bookshop it doesn’t really count.

Rosamunds biggest passion is childrens audio books, for which purpose she and the rest at Mainstreet Trading Company created their own little Book Burrows.”Children can put on an audio book and just sit and listen. Works out quite well for the parents as well, since they can have a cup of coffee at the same time” (for there is a café too, of course).

All I can say is that if my parents had ever left me in a Book Burrow, they could have picked me up weeks later without me realizing they had been gone and without me being willing to leave. “Just one more chapter”, I’d probably say.

Come to think of it, that is probably what would happen today, if anyone had the good sense to leave me in one. I tried to sneak into one, but in the end my courage failed me.

Their recommendation? A childrens audio book of course: How to train your dragon. It seems absolutely brilliant.

Ps. If you here, do not forget to drink enough tea to have to visit the toilets*

*Do you say toilets in England? I had an American teacher who felt very strongly for it: “It’s the bathroom. Toilet is so very… graphic.” Although my most strange toilet-language-barrier was probably when I tried to ask for the ladies room in Barcelona and from the stunned expression of my Spanish waiter deducted that I had just asked where the women laid. Anyway. Visit the toilets.