Zeppelins O ver Hay!

Well, a little barrage balloon, anyway! It's advertising Red Indigo Indian restaurant.

It's the first day of the Festival, and the special buses from Hereford Railway Station are running, along with the little shuttle buses around town to the Festival site. Blue Bell Tents have sprung up just across the river, and I'm sure the usual teepees will be somewhere about - I just haven't come across them yet.

Meanwhile, the new sign has gone up over what used to be the Sensible Bookshop. Adela's Dress Agency is moving from across the road. It's bigger premises, and the shop has sold clothing before, back in the days when Antique Annie sold her vintage clothes there. That was a fun shop. Up on Castle Street, Rohan outdoor clothing is opening up where the barber's was for a while. Which means that Hay is rather well off for clothes shops at the moment, with more outdoor clothing just across the road, Focus and Number Two and the one that used to be Field's greengrocers just by the Castle Gardens, The Old Curiosity for antique clothing up at the Castle and Nepal Bazaar by the Castle gate, woollens at Wool and Willow in Backfold, more vintage clothes down at Sage Femme, and yet more at La Maison and Cotswold Collections, not forgetting Golesworthy's on the corner by the Clock Tower. And there are the three charity shops for those of us who get our clothes 'pre-loved'.

And finally, a bit of an experiment as I attempt to display a poster for Marijana Dworski and Clare Keil's exhibition of Russian and European avant garde book covers: