The man from St Malo

I went into Hereford yesterday to get some bits for my computer, and I got talking at the bus stop to a Frenchman who had been visiting Hay. He was on his way to Bath to a book fair for a few days, and was going on to Salisbury after that. He lives in St Malo, and has been coming over to Hay for years. He knows everyone, which I saw demonstrated when Haydn Pugh joined the bus queue, and they were obviously old friends. Then Pete of Boz Books came past just before the bus came, and it was handshakes all round.

It is officially summer in Hay now - I saw the first camera crew of summer outside the Post Office! Some people count summer as starting from when the first swallows arrive - we look out for the camera crews.

I met Betty on the Riverside Path this morning. She went to a meeting to start a U3A group in Hay last night. This stands for University of the Third Age, and is for older people who want to exercise their brains. About a dozen people turned up, which is not bad for a town the size of Hay. Apparently the U3A in Brecon has been running for about 20 years, and has over 300 members.

I think I'll stick with Stitch n Bitch. We had our usual session last night in the Wool and Willow shop. The lady who makes beaded jewellery asked if she could display some of it in the shop, even though it's neither wool nor willow, and the idea has grown slightly. Joyce and Myra are now keen to have a small area for local crafts, which would include the jewellery. Joyce was laughing that one of the best sellers in the shop at the moment are the decorated tea cosies, because Marijana across the road can't stand seeing them in the window. Just as Joyce was changing the window last Saturday, and replacing the tea cosies with felt chickens, two ladies rushed into the shop. "Have you sold them all?" they asked. Joyce showed them where she'd put the tea cosies, and they beamed with relief. They'd found the shop the previous evening, when it was closed, and spent some time peering through the window picking out which tea cosy they wanted.