In February we found out about Jessica Fox, who told us in three and a half minutes about her journey from US to Scotland driven by her love of books.
Self-study activity:
Watch the clip by clicking on the picture below or on Jessica's link above and say whether the statements below are true or false.
The activity is suitable for (strong) intermediate students.
1 Jessica used to work a lot in the US.
2. She worked for NASA.
3. Life was almost perfect in California.
4. She suddenly thought that running a bookshop in Scotland was a good idea.
5. There are around 60 used bookshops in Wigtown.
6. The area around Wigtown is called Mini Scotland.
7. When she first visited Wigtown she made the decision to move there and then.
8. Moving to Scotland hasn't been really difficult.
9. She doesn't regret her decision.
There is a place in our lives for instinct and just a bit of mystery. I really do think that the assumptions we have about ourselves are really worth questioning.
My life was very un…imbalanced, and I was a workaholic, and I worked all the time. I also had a dream job. I was working for NASA and doing media direction for them but internally so basically I was as storage ...firm. I loved California for all the reasons because of the weather, and it was tough to make it to the Silverlake Hills, from there I could easily walk and get, like my vegan burrito or my, you know, go to my favourite clothing, hipster clothing style or the coffee shop.
For about a year a certain vision kept on coming back and that was a used bookshop by the sea in Scotland, and I could feel the air, I could see the bookshelves, and suddenly I saw there’s a woman behind the counter, and the woman looked up, and it was me.
So I sat down and I typed in ‘used bookshops Scotland’ to Google and Wigtown came up. And I felt like I had hit the jackpot, it was like 16 bookshops right by the sea in Scotland and I said of course it exists.
Some people call it Mini Scotland because what we have here is rolling beautiful farmland, you have the Highlands, you have ancient woodlands, which is really rare to get. Wigtown itself is built in a kind of oval shaped, beautiful old-stone houses that are connected in different colours. A lot of them are bookshops. So you couldn’t get a more romantic setting for a bookshop, you can get a variety of books and you only have, one food store(s), you can see the priority that books, that books take here.
I stayed here about a month on my first visit, and then afterwards I went back to California, and it took me a while to realize I was craving to go back because I missed especially the bookshop owner who was in the town.
Romantic comedies have ruined me. I am a child of the cinema and it looks so easy that you have to win when you wanted to go foreign country and start a new life, you could do just a beautiful montage sequence and you’d be there. But in reality, it’s really hard. There are rules and there are visas you have to apply for, it takes money and time.
I’m an idealist and a romantic, and I thought people are people, no matter where in the world you are, people are people.
I was reading it at three o’clock this morning, I hardly put it down.
It’s true, but there’s also cultural sensitivities and I did barge in here sort of like the media from the US and I slowly had to kind of sensitise myself to really different rhythms and different way of life.
My sense of happy feet has sort of calmed down. Now that I have found the balanced my artistic life and my career writing and my relationships especially, has really flourished. I have a lot of trust in the role of instinct in our lives.
Key:
1T 2T 3T 4F 5F 6T 7F 8F 9T
