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!
A friend told me about some huge stones he had seen while he was out walking, and he thought they might be prehistoric standing stones. He sent me some photos he'd taken. It sounded interesting, so yesterday I went out with another friend who has a car, and we went to investigate.
The stones were supposed to be close to a farm, which is close to Hay, but so remote that it doesn't even have a road passing the farmhouse - you have to go up a narrow farm track. We parked at the edge of the farmyard, and knocked at the house. The lady there was friendly, but at first she couldn't think of any old stones on the property. Then she had a bright idea, and led us across the garden, through a gate - and there they were.
Except they weren't old stones at all. There's a fairly modern barn at the top of the farmyard, and she told us that they needed to level the ground to get it in, so they also cut into the side of the hill - and that's where they dug out the big stones. They just put them by the side of the track, where they'd be out of the way. So sadly, there's nothing to report to the Megalithic Portal website after all.
All that hadn't taken long at all, so we went on to the New Strand at Eardisley for coffee and cake - and very nice cake it was, too. I had the jam sponge, and my friend had carrot cake, and we spread our maps out over the table to compare notes on our local history research.
While we were there a group of older ladies came in, who were obviously regulars, to have lunch - the chips smelled delicious!
And when I was walking through town, I found a young man busking at the top of the Pavement, who was playing a hurdy-gurdy! I don't think I've ever seen anyone busking with a hurdy-gurdy before!
The plaque also remembers Dr Wilson's son Nick, who died in 2019, aged 52.
It was donated by the Keith Leighton Neurology Fund, which is a local charity.
