... and the Heavens Opened

It's been a remarkably wet weekend. This morning I had to throw Islay out of the front door or she'd never have gone out and done what a dog needs to do.
It's been the pony sales all weekend, and the car park has been full of horse boxes, and visitors have been reporting long queues of traffic coming up from South Wales. The main road beyond Clyro in the direction of Hereford was closed because of the water, and traffic had to go round by the toll bridge. I think it's open again now, but the river is very high - the canoe landing stage and Booth Island are under water, and the river itself is the colour of ovaltine.
Our interesting customer of the week was a Welsh farmer doing research into family history. He had discovered that one of his ancestors had led one of the Rebecca Riots, down near Carmarthen, where he made coracles for a living.
The nearest the Rebecca Riots came to Hay was a small disturbance at the toll cottage in Glasbury - it was a protest about the high cost of tolls and the restriction of travel for poorer people. The leaders of the riots disguised themselves in women's clothing.
If you look at an early 19thC map of Hay, you can see that a traveller had to pay a penny just to get out of town, whichever direction he wanted to travel in - and then there would be other tolls to pay as he used the main roads after that.