Sadly, I missed the concerts at St Mary's at the weekend, but I did happen to pop in for a Way-on-High magazine while one of the pianists was practicing on the magnificent Steinway Grand Piano that they had brought with them.
Which made me even more sorry that I missed the actual concerts.
My neighbour took me out to dinner to thank me for watering her plants while she was away (none of them died!). She hasn't eaten out much in Hay before, so I gave her a list of options, and she chose Tomatitos so that we could order a variety of dishes and nibble - it being too hot for a big, heavy meal.
This was also a good choice because of the garden area at the back, which she had been unaware of. It was a bit too hot and stuffy inside, even after 7pm.
We had patatas bravas (because I love Brave Potatoes), a cauliflower dish and something with blue cheese and little bits of beetroot, along with a glass of Pinot Grigot - not too much to eat, and a very pleasant evening chatting.
I went into Hereford yesterday afternoon with a friend and her two adult children for the nineteenth Beer on the Wye. It's also running today and tomorrow, at the Rowing Club in Hereford.
Because of works that the Rowing Club were doing on the field, the beer festival wasn't held last year. This year, because of the improvements to the site, the marquee has been erected at 90 degrees to it's position in all the previous festivals - which was a bit disorienting. Inside, it looks exactly the same, but when you look outside, suddenly you have no idea where the river is!
We got used to it over the afternoon, and even sat at a table by the river (under an umbrella) with a lovely couple from Cardiff who were doing a crossword puzzle. My friend is a crossword fanatic - she'd even brought some crosswords to do at the festival herself - so we had a lot of fun helping them to solve it and chatting.
Usually at a beer festival I like to try as many different beer styles as possible (subject to my cut off point of a maximum of three pints - any more than that and I feel awful the next day). So this means six halves, or nine thirds. However, this time there were two breweries there with beers I wanted to taste, and they were both Gold beers (somewhere around the bitter/IPA area, but now a distinct style of its own). Uley's Hog's Wallop and Woodfordes Bure Gold were both delicious, but the Uley packed a slightly harder punch at 5.2%. Then my friend wanted to try the Solstice from Three Tuns brewery at Bishops Castle - we'd both visited the pub at different times some years ago, so it was a bit of a trip down memory lane. Solstice is a bitter, and very pleasant on a hot day.
I wanted to try a mild, so I went for Old Magic from Magic Dragon in Wrexham - again for nostalgic reasons, because I used to live near Wrexham. I hadn't come across the brewery before, but it was a very good mild.
I finished off with the Jaipur Union IPA from Thornbridge. I first tasted Jaipur at a Beer on the Wye (I think it might have won supreme champion of the festival that year) and since then they have installed a traditional Burton Union fermentation system in the brewery (which is something that beer nerds get quite excited about). It was delicious, and a good beer to round off the session before we went for the last bus home.
The champion beers of the festival (and also ciders and perries) were announced while we were there, but I didn't write them down. I think Makerfield from Weird Dad brewery in Newport was the supreme champion this year - it's a pale ale, and Jarl, a blond ale from Fyne Ales in Argyll, all the way from Scotland, was also mentioned, as well as Titan from Left Handed Giant brewery in Bristol, a pale ale.
And there was a treat when we got back to Hay - a traction engine came down the road just as we got off the bus!
A friend said I should go to see the exhibition at The Table by Lily Forwood.
She makes big pictures in mixed media, many of them of railway stations, and my friend pointed out that the orange lines on some of them are made from old train tickets.
She also does local landscapes like the Cat's Back and the Twmpa, and there was one small and very pretty one of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
Two of the pictures have already sold.
I hope the chef does well.
This weekend, in Hereford at the Rowing Club, is the nineteenth Beer on the Wye.
They had a year off last year, while the Rowing Club did work on the festival field, which will mean that the marquee is at 90 degrees to the previous position parallel to the river.
Inside the marquee there will be over 300 beers, ciders and perries, food trucks, and nine different live bands in the evenings. I've already had a look at the beer list, and they've got a couple of my favourites on it - two from Uley brewery in Gloucestershire, and one from Woodeforde's in Norfolk - so I'm looking forward to it.
The PBFA Book Fair was in the Castle yesterday - a lovely collection of old and rare books from dealers who had come from all over the country to take part.
I was almost afraid to touch one exhibit - I have no idea what the dealer was asking for it, but it was a handwritten notebook with a map, and I think it was notes for one of Wainwright's walking books (the word Troutbeck was there on the page).
Meanwhile on the Castle lawn, there was a giant sundial!
