It must be Spring....

they've started to put books out on the Honesty shelves! This is Richard Booth's outdoor bookshop, in the Castle Gardens and, for obvious reasons, the shelves are cleared for the winter. In the summer, the books go out until someone takes pity on them and buys them, or they go mouldy in the rain, when they are periodically cleared from the shelves and sent to the dump. It really is the Last Chance Saloon for books. There's a sign up suggesting a price of 50p for hardbacks and 30p for paperbacks, but there's no-one there to check whether you put any money in the box in the wall - hence the name Honesty.

There are warning signs up at the top of Backfold, and the retaining wall there is swathed in warning tape - a large crack has appeared where the wall has started to come away from whatever is behind it, and it'll need to be completely re-built. Until then, it's probably best not to jump up and down anywhere near it.

Rob Soldat is giving a talk in the Library on 16th April, at 6pm, on King Brychan of Brycheniog and his fabulous daughters, and it's free. I saw Rob this morning, and he said that he'd gone into the library for something else, got talking to the librarian, and came out with a booking! His guide book of Hay is teetering on the brink of being published, and he's doing research into the Black Lion for a TV company which wants to make a programme about it.

I'd just got back from Brecon when I saw Rob, and the road is much clearer now - the Bronllys and Talgarth bypass is finally open, so all those roadworks have disappeared. There are still roadworks on the way into Talgarth, and on the corner by the Talgarth beast market, though.

As Islay couldn't come to Brecon with me, we went for a long walk when I got back. Toothwort is out on the Offa's Dyke Path - a slightly macabre plant that is supposed to look like the grinning teeth of a skull as it grows.
On the way back, we passed by Di Blunt's house, and Islay came nose to beak with a fledgling blackbird just by the path. It's very lucky to be alive!