You’d be hard pressed to find a writer or book lover who doesn’t harbour a secret dream of running a bookshop, preferably in a serene, coastal location. This week, I had the pleasure of doing just that, and became the short-term proprietor of The Open Book, a secondhand bookshop in Wigtown, a rural seaside town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.

For just £400, two people can rent the flat above the shop on Airbnb for a week, running the shop in whatever way they see fit. I’m clearly not the only one for whom this is a lifelong dream – The Open Book is currently booked out until 2023, but I got lucky with a last-minute cancellation.

So, on an icy Monday morning, my boyfriend and I hastily booked a rental car – public transport to Wigtown is practically impossible, thanks to its remote location – and started the long drive north. The harsh winds and icy rain hit us the minute we arrived.

With the assurance that there was no need for heavy-duty locks or alarm systems here, we were given a key and access to the cash float. All the money made in The Open Book goes back into ordering stock and keeping the shop going.

The next morning, we were up bright and early, ready for our first day of bookselling. Wigtown is an auspicious spot to try one’s hand at this trade as it boasts more than 15 bookshops – not bad for a town with a population of about 1,000 souls. Partly thanks to a concerted regeneration effort in the late 90s, this has made it Scotland’s official “book town”.

Although there is no expectation about when to open and how to sell, every bookseller is encouraged to make their mark on the shop, dictating everything from the displays and layouts to pricing. First on the agenda? Unpacking boxes of books. We soon realised a large part of the life of a bookseller is sifting through an endless press of Dan Brown thrillers.

Surprisingly, the shop’s fiction section was pretty sparse, with most space given over to books on the local landscape, Scottish history, wine and wildlife. Our pricing strategy was vague at best. We generally plumped for £1 for a paperback, £2 for a hardback and £4 for a coffee-table book or anything by Dickens. People always want Dickens, so we figured we may as well leave a little room for negotiation with the tough customers desperate for another copy of Oliver Twist.

As we were hunting through a pile of books about wild falcons on our first morning, we turned around and suddenly the shop was full, with a family of American Baptists asking where the religious section was. Before we knew it, they were explaining how we were destined for eternity in hell. We sold them a dusty old book about God’s suffering in exchange for £1 and a prayer card explaining exactly what we needed to do to recognise Jesus as our lord and saviour.

Because we were there during the winter season, the customers were few and far between, but always memorable. An old chap arrived just before we were about to close, who took a real interest in the old 1970s Playboy annual we had in stock. He proceeded to tell us – at length – about the differing aesthetics of Playboy and Penthouse models throughout each magazine’s history. Forty minutes later, when we were just about losing the will to live, he left, having bought nothing.

The name on everyone’s lips, though, was Shaun Bythell. Owner of the town’s largest bookshop, Shaun wrote The Diary of a Bookseller, the book that introduced me – as well as many others – to Wigtown. Referred to as the “King of Wigtown” by other residents, he really seemed to be at the centre of everything that goes on there. We popped into his shop a few times over the week, but he always seemed to be out, which was a shame. As soon as I saw a Kindle mounted on the wall which had been blasted with a shotgun, I knew we’d have got along.

The Open Book is actually the brainchild of Shaun’s ex-partner Jessica Fox. Fox is the author of Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets, a book about her move from LA, where she worked for Nasa, to Wigtown, where she came following her dream of running a bookshop and promptly fell in love with Shaun. The pair are no longer together, but still get on really well, I was assured by literally every person I met. There’s no sense of privacy in Wigtown, but I can’t blame them. It’s a great story that, needless to say, has been optioned for a film.

If we weren’t being entertained by the customers, it was the other booksellers, who welcomed us like old friends. We became as much of a tourist attraction for the locals as the place was for us, and the conversations we had were worlds away from those back home. Nobody cared what our jobs were – they were more interested in what had brought us here.

Our time in the bookshop was not an economic triumph. We probably bought more books than we sold, but it didn’t matter. For me, as for so many others, the idea has been a long-held retirement plan. With high streets in ever increasing trouble, that plan has become more of a ridiculous dream. To be able to live it for a week was an undiluted pleasure, reminding me yet again of the need for bookshops in local communities. I feel like I left a part of myself in Wigtown and am already counting down the days until my next visit … even if I have to wait until 2023.