Festival Around Town

 I've been bimbling around town today, pretending to be a tourist.

Fair in the Square is on, with the usual vintage stalls, food stalls and live music.  I treated myself to a falafel, which was very good, though the estimated wait time of ten minutes might have been a little optimistic!

In the Buttermarket and Cheesemarket there were more stalls, mostly of the crafty variety, and up at the Castle there was a craft fair on the lawn.  They had live music, too, from a girl with a harp accompanied by a singer, guitarist and violinist.

More food trucks were in the Honesty bookshop, and down on Belmont Road the Secret Wine Bar was open, selling local Black Mountain wines (and some from a friend's vineyard near Presteigne).

The garden was open at Tinto House, along with small art gallery on one side and vintage French linens on the other.  There's an art exhibition in the empty shop near Kilvert's, too.

And there are real owls at the Wobbly Owl shop this afternoon. 

Hiking Hedgehog

 

New post box topper for the Festival.

Heard at Hay Festival

 I'd booked a ticket to the very first event at Hay Festival - well, the very first for adults.  The lady introducing the event said that there had been eight thousand kids from schools who had been bussed in for the day, and there would be a similar number of older children on the Friday.

They were trying a new format for talks.  Normally, three guests would sit on stage, and be given prompting questions by the moderator, to get a discussion going.  This time, though, after an introduction by Simon Armitage (who also read one of his poems, about a late library book), each guest got up to give a mini lecture, after which there was time for a few questions.

Tony Robinson said that he had been expecting the first type of event, but he gave a very good talk anyway about what history is, and how all the writers of history have had an agenda that you need to know something about before you take their account at face value.

Katherine Rundell talked about the importance of encouraging critical thinking in young people in a time of AI that pretty much agreed with everything you said and gave inaccurate information.  She's done a lot of work in schools, so she's seen changes as pupils start to rely on ChatGPT and the like.

Dallas Campbell started by saying he'd been going to talk about one thing, but had been inspired by the previous speakers to talk about something completely different!  He's interested in space archaeology, and talked about moon regolith and how it can be used to make all sorts of useful things, from cinder blocks to build Moon habitats for astronauts, to silicon chips.  He had also brought along Neil Armstrong's space suit - well, not really Neil Armstrong's space suit ("that's behind bullet proof glass at the Smithsonian!") but the space suit that had been made for Ryan Gosling for a film where he played Neil Armstrong.  Which is nearly as good!

  After the talk, I went to the food tent for some delicious Tibetan curry.

This meant that I passed the BBC Marquee on my way home, just at the moment when several different breeds of sheep were lining up, with their handlers holding leashes, to process up the aisle to the stage!

And then they turned round and came out again!
 

Bizarrely, the music they walked in to was the House of the Rising Sun!

I have no idea which BBC programme this was for - it wasn't up on BBC Sounds when I went to look. 

Borderlands at the Castle

 Before I dived into the first day of Hay Festival, I went up to the Castle to see the new exhibition there.

 This isn't a brilliant picture, but the best I could get of the Antarctic flag now flying from the Castle tower.  It's made up of flags from all round the world.

The exhibition is called Borderlands: From the Welsh Borders to Antarctica, and the most spectacular exhibits are the Antarctic tents decorated with multicoloured gloves, flags and sleeves, representing many different cultures.

 Here's one of the flags, overprinted with words from the Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to move freely and circulate beyond the state borders to a territory of their choice."  On some flags the wording was in French.

There was also a film in the entrance hall about beating the bounds, with a laid hedge, local maps on cloth hung over the balustrade, and there are pictures and sculptures scattered around the Castle.

Outside in the grounds, Sally Matthews had just installed one of her animal sculptures:

 This year it's a lynx, and Sally Matthews was still there when I passed, so I got to have a chat with her, and tell her how much I like her work.

Meanwhile in the Castle Yard, there's a small pop up art gallery - the exhibition there is called Fragile Wild, and the paintings are detailed panels of foliage and flowers. 

The Borderlands exhibition runs until the 31st August. 

Rose and Crown for Sale

 The internet hasn't quite caught up with events yet, as the page showing that the Rose and Crown is open is still up.  In reality, it has been closed for a while, and the tenants have gone.  

When Linda and Paul ran the pub, successfully for many years, they wanted to buy the building, but at that time the owner didn't want to sell.  Since Paul and Linda retired, none of the new tenants have managed to stick around for very long.  

So now the owner of the pub is selling up.  It's a historic building, and I'm pretty sure it's Grade II listed, and it needs quite a bit of work doing to it - which is more complicated because of the listed status.

I hope someone does take it on, and give it the tender loving care it deserves. 

Breakfast in a Bookshop

 I think it's a lovely idea - North Books are offering an hour's private browsing time before they open properly with coffee, and pastries from Baka bakery across the road. 

Booking is essential - you can't just drop in.

Local History

 I've been busy over the last few days with meetings about local history.  There's some fascinating research happening around Cusop Dingle, which I can't really talk about yet - and also I need to do a lot more research for my part of the project.

Meanwhile, plans for the Cusop Castle dig are going well, and we're all looking forward to seeing what we will find!

And, of course, we're gearing up at work for the Festival, which is almost upon us!