Friends of the River Wye have been in Westminster to lobby MPs to vote against the government's proposed Poultry Growth Strategy. There has been no local community engagement by DEFRA and the big chicken factory farm owners, and here's a map of the chicken units that already exist in the Wye catchment area:
The venue is Clyro Village Hall, which is larger that Cusop Village Hall. The dig committee wants there to be enough room for everyone who is interested - 112 volunteers took part in the dig! They won't all be able to be there, but there are plenty of other people locally who are interested, too.
The next Hay Music concert will be performed by the Mithras Trio. They play piano, violin and cello, and will be performing works by Mozart, Enescu and Brahms at St Mary's Church on Friday 23rd October at 7pm. Tickets are £20, and £10 for under 25s, and as usual there will be a bar.
For Hallowe'en, Hay Castle are putting on the film American Werewolf in London, in the Great Hall at 8pm on Friday October 30th (bring a cushion!). Tickets are £15.
Although I've known about the film for years, and knew that some of it was filmed in this area (the Slaughtered Lamb pub is a house in Crickadarn, for instance), I've never seen the film itself.
So that's what I'm doing for Hallowe'en.
I've never been to Gwernyfed Walled Garden before, mostly because I thought it was more difficult to get to than it is. Just up the drive to Gwernyfed School there's a side turn, and the walled garden is just there. So it's really close to the bus stops, and I can get there easily on my own when I go again.
A friend was treating me to lunch, which we had in the old glass house after a stroll round the garden. It's full of produce and flowers at the moment. She also pointed out the part of the garden wall which has been rebuilt in breeze blocks - a reminder of the explosion in the munition dump during World War Two!
I had the Thai curry, she had the parsnip soup, and we shared a pot of tea between us. I noticed that there were some delicious looking cakes on display too - maybe next time!
As we left, we passed some building work in progress, where they are adding an extension. It will be interesting to come back next year to see the results.
Clocktower Books are holding an author event at Hay Distillery on Saturday 17th October at 6.30pm. (They don't really have much space in the shop to host events there).
AJ West will be talking about his latest book The Deadly Inheritance of Everest Macdonald.
Initially, I thought Everest Macdonald was a man's name, but I saw a video on Instagram from AJ West - and Everest was a girl, the niece of William Terriss, a famous Victorian actor who was murdered at the stage door of the theatre he was performing at! So there's a fascinating back story for the novel.
The event is free, but places should be reserved by either scanning the QR code on the posters around town (there's one in the Cinema Bookshop), or by calling in at Clocktower Books.
The Kitchen Shelf sells cookery books, along with a few condiments and accessories for kitchens. They're in the shop that used to house the Haymakers, who have now moved next to the Buttermarket.
