Festival Diary - Saturday

The picture says it all, really. It's Wet.

I went over to Racquety Farm this morning to the craft fair. It's called The Big Skill, and there are lots of people there demonstrating crafts and getting people to try things - or at least, they would if more people were braving the rain and mud to get to them. There's a master thatcher, and a potter, and two ladies doing pyrography, and others doing spinning and weaving and crochet and knitting and needle felting. There are also people selling photographs and clothes and jewellery and all sorts of other things, all of them lovely. One lady was showing off a rather wonderful 18th century wig made out of felt - the sort of piled high look that women used to embellish with little sailing ships or bird cages at the court of Louis XIV. Sadly, I wasn't quick enough to get my camera out.
Hopefully, the weather will be better for them tomorrow.

In town, the Fair on the Square has lots of interesting vintage goods. I just wish I had a bigger house!
On the way back, I popped into the old jigsaw shop, now The Old Electric Shop. There are several different areas run by different people, including a small art gallery at the back, vintage clothes, handbags, and interesting junk. There's an old fashioned football game out the back, which had a whole family round it playing while I was there - the sort with the men on a long pole across the pitch that you can move them sideways on and then get them to kick the ball. At the front is a bar area.
The breakfast room of Tinto House has become a cafe for the week (or they may move outside to the garden if it ever stops raining).
I went up to the Globe, too, which seems to have a lot of food stalls, as well as a cinema tent and the big bar area with live music and Festival bookshop. There are events in tents, too, and of course in the main building.

Later I took the shuttle bus up to the Festival site to meet a friend. She'd just been at a talk and we ambled around a bit to see what was there. Both of us are customers of Good Energy, who are one of the sponsors of the Festival this year - there's a Good Energy stage, and a stall advertising the company, partly powered by bicycle. We got free cheerfully yellow mugs.
A little further along was a stall talking about water power and a tidal energy project in Swansea bay. They also had wall displays about other tidal bays around the country, like Morecambe Bay. The energy comes from the difference in level between the sea and the lagoon as the tide goes in and out - and the lagoons could also be useful for flood protection. There's a website (of course) at www.tidallagoonpower.com

I decided to walk back to town, despite the rain, to have a look at the stalls in gardens along the Brecon Road. There were lots of opportunities to buy Welsh cakes for various good causes. And also dog biscuits. And 5 different real ales for £3 a pint at the front of the Masonic Hall.
One paved front garden had a horse box parked on it and lots of hay strewn around. The lady from Hay TV was there, just setting up a mini cafe - which she's calling Whips and Spurs! There are hay bales in the horse box to sit on, and a counter, and tables outside for better weather, and she was just putting up lots of horsey stuff like rosettes and whips around the place. And trying to work out how the gas ring worked for the hot chocolate. Fortunately, one of her friends happened by, and knew how to put the gas canister in, so I watched him carefully. I got a very similar gas ring after the last major power failure, but I haven't used it yet.