Borderlines Film Festival

 The Borderlines Film Festival began on 6th March, and there are several films being shown in Hay.

I'm afraid I missed the first weekend of films - Booth's Bookshop Cinema was showing No Other Choice, a South Korean film about a man who goes for a job and decides to get rid of his rivals, Resurrection, a Chinese sort of time travel film spanning a century of Chinese history, and Nouvelle Vague, a French film re-imagining the making of Jean-Luc Godard's film A bout de souffle - the original film is also being shown in Ludlow and Hereford.

Coming up on Friday 13th is The Last Viking, a Danish crime comedy starring Mads Mikkelsen, and on Saturday 14th is The Stranger, a French adaptation of the Albert Camus novel.

All sorts of other films are showing across Herefordshire - it's a pity I can't get to Malvern or Hereford (well, I can get there - it's getting home that's the problem!) to see The Testament of Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, a religious sect that started in Manchester.  There's also H is for Hawk, and Zootropolis 2, which shows something of the wide variety of films on offer.

There are also films about Palestine. All That's Left of You follows three generations of a Palestinian family from 1948 to the near present, one is set in 1936 when the Palestinians rose up against British rule, and The Voice of Hind Rajab, is about the little girl who was killed by Israeli forces in 2024, along with everyone else in the car with her, and the ambulance crew sent to rescue her. 

 

Hay Castle on TV

 Sky History at 9pm tonight - the programme is called Great British Castle Rescue, and Hay Castle features in the first episode.  As far as I can see, all the castles in the series were helped by National Lottery money, which is why Hay Castle has been letting visitors in for free if they have a lottery ticket this week (normally it's £7.50, but the ticket lasts for a year).

Flora of Brecknockshire

 Compiling a complete record of the flora of the local area has been literally a life time's work.

Mike Porter, the Recorder for the county for the British Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, started collecting information for the book soon after he got the job in 1968.  In 2013, John Crellin joined him as co-Recorder, and started to help him with the book in 2021.  Sadly, Mike died last year, but by then most of the main text was complete, and John Crellin brought it to publication.  

There's a lot of diversity of habitats in the area, with mountains, moorlands, woodland, limestone pavements, and the largest lake in South Wales.  The book is hardback, with over 1100 distribution maps of the different species.  It's been illustrated by the wonderful local artist Meg Stevens - she did the most marvellous landscapes of the local area, often from a vantage point low down among the wildflowers.  I could never afford one of her paintings, but I do still have some of her greetings cards (which she kindly signed for me).

Not only does the book have the flora of the present day, but Mike Porter went back into the records as far as 1666, also incorporating the work of Victorian naturalists, especially Augustin Ley, vicar of Sellack in Herefordshire.

The book is available for pre-order now, at a discount price of £35, from Summerfield Books, www.summerfieldbooks.com  The publication date is 1st April, at which time the cover price of £40 will be charged, and there will be a press launch at the Bannau Brycheiniog Visitor Centre on 9th April.

The Brecknock Botany Group has a blog at https://floralimages.blogspot.com/ and it's well worth a visit or two. 

Cash Machine Back

 Someone said on Facebook that the cash machine in the craft centre is working again, so I checked this morning, and it is.  The toilets are still closed, however.

According to the Powys County Times, NoteMachine, the owners of the cash machine, had to order a new security door for the machine - and it took between six to eight weeks to be delivered! 

Telescope

 The Red Cross shop has had a space themed window for a while now - Star Wars jigsaws, books on astronomy and, as a focal point, a large telescope on a tripod.

Now that it's so easy for me to just step  outside my kitchen door and look up at the night sky, from a very dark garden, I've been getting into astronomy more.  So finally, I decided to take the plunge.

Even in the charity shop, it cost £80, but I looked it up online, and it's supposed to be a perfect telescope for a beginner.

Now all I need is a clear night!

 

More Archaeology in Hay

 Exciting news at the Castle mound in the old cattle market by the Swan - trial trenches are being opened up this week to search for evidence of the original Norman castle.  This is the castle that came before Matilda de Braose built the present Hay Castle.

Black Mountains Archaeology Ltd. have been hired by Powys County Council to do the dig, and it's professionals only - not like the Cusop Castle dig in June, which welcomes volunteers as a community dig.

I'm hoping to get there towards the end of the week to see what they've uncovered.

 

Quilting at the Castle

 The entrance hall to the Castle has been moved around a bit, so the reception desk is no longer by the stairs, but directly opposite the front door where it can be seen more easily.  However, this means that the quilting table was pushed into a corner - about half the table was in direct light from one of the windows, but the corner was a bit dark.

I wasn't sure what to expect, so I went along with no sewing materials at all.  The regular ladies quickly set me up with needle, thread, snips and a pile of material cut into hexagons that needed to be sewn to hexagon shaped pieces of paper.  When the quilts are finally assembled, the paper is taken out.

Another new lady was shown how to add hexagons onto a partly completed quilt.

Each quilt is quite small, and they are intended to be given to new refugees.

Conversation around the table was  interesting - one lady was about to go to Shanghai to see her son.  Another lady is a potter, and she showed us pictures of a Viking lamp she had made.  This is a small bowl with a central column, and you wind beeswax impregnated twine round the column to make the wick, then fill the bowl with wax, or olive oil, or whale blubber if you've got it!  Because it's a coiled wick, it makes a brighter light than a normal candle.

Another lady had pictures of the Red Dress.  It's an absolutely gorgeous silk dress, made from embroidered pieces from all over the world, and it took years to put together.  Many of the pieces were made by refugees.  It's now touring on exhibition - it was at Theatr Brycheiniog last September, and it's in Geneva on 10th March.  Later in the year it will be in Australia. 

There's now a new project for a Calico Dress made in a similar way.  Calico Dress Cymru has been made by a variety of different groups across Wales, in partnership with the Waterfront Museum in Swansea.  Other calico dresses are being developed around the world.

The quilting group meets every Saturday at 11am at the Castle, and I've already put a little box of supplies ready for next week.