Sunday 24 May 2015

Seen Around the Festival

Brian has been making his bookshop beautiful for the festival, with new signs, a table and chairs outside, plants, and model Staffies here and there (after all, the shop is named after his favourite Staffie!). It's down near the Clock Tower, behind Rose's Bookshop.


Yesterday there were crafts in the Buttermarket, including one chap I hadn't seen before. His stall is called Iconic Delights, and he makes replica icons with modern pictures - he'll also do photos, made to look like antique paintings. Very popular with re-enactors, he said. He'd come down from Ludlow for the day.
The Fair on the Square had music going on, and stalls selling a variety of vintage items - one stall had a lot of leather footballs and boxing gloves!
The Africa Market was on today, at the Parish Hall.
Meanwhile there are rumours of a cocktail bar, hidden within one of the bookshops, down the Book Passage, perhaps?
Hay on TV are having a competition - to win an iPhone6! They want people to record their best Hay moments, during the Festival, reviews and comments on events, bars and restaurants, and are asking participants to upload their video onto Youtube and forward the url to hayontv@gmail.com
There have been buskers all over town, including Toby Parker, who went off to Liverpool to make his fortune! This evening there's a fiddle player, a banjo player and a guitarist outside the pop up shop in the middle of Broad Street - the shop is also having meditations throughout the week, and is selling dreamcatchers and art and vintage clothes (there are so many places in Hay to buy vintage clothes now that I never need to buy a new dress again!).
Yesterday I spent a bit of time sitting outside with my neighbour, who usually does a table sale for the Festival. I think she did quite well - she has a good eye for interesting clothes and pretty things. One couple of regular visitors who stopped for a chat were disappointed, because they'd intended to go down to the Globe, as they have on previous years, to have a drink and soak up the atmosphere, only to find that this year you need to buy a wristband to get in. So they'd come away again.
They weren't very impressed with the chippy in Talgarth that they stopped at on the way back from Llanidloes, either. They said the batter was soggy.
And last night, there was a jazz quartet on the pavement just opposite my house! Which was quite nice, actually, even though I'm not a great fan of jazz.

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