Art and Music (and boyfriends)

I've been somewhat distracted from my normal routine this last week, as Mark was here helping me to celebrate my landmark birthday. (Fifty! How did that happen?)
Completely above and beyond the call of duty, or friendship, or even besottedness, was his heroic promise to bring me a mini oven that he didn't need, on public transport. He thoroughly deserved the pint I bought him at Wetherspoons in Hereford! It's now looking very smart in my kitchen and we've already collaborated in creating some delicious meals on it (mmm, rabbit casserole with raspberry jam, and a Mexican style stew with achiote paste and orange juice).
It may be quiet compared to the Big City, but we've still managed to go out to some event or other nearly every evening, starting off with the Photography exhibition at the Globe, moving on to Open Mic night at Kilvert's, which was in memory of Andy Miller (the party moved on from the bar to Fagna's house and went on until the wee small hours). Mark had been practicing a piece to perform, so we duly got up and sang The Trail of the Lonesome Pine as a duet, with him as Stan Laurel me as Oliver Hardy (complete with hammer to change the pitch of his voice!). Then there was the St Patrick's Day celebration at Salem Chapel (of which more in another post), an evening spent tasting interesting beers in Kilvert's (the bottles of Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout may be £5.40 each, but the beer tastes fantastic!), a wonderful Indian meal at Red Indigo and a housewarming party in Cusop.

Meanwhile, of course, all sorts of other things have been happening in Hay, or are about to happen.
One day, we went into Booth's Bookshop to have a look at Richard Evans' Pop Art exhibition. Richard designed album covers for the Who, amongst others (he wrote the book on album covers that was recently launched at Booths), and his work is hung all around the new cafe. It was closed when we went, but we sneaked in anyway, and were most impressed, both at the artwork and the layout of the cafe, which I hadn't got round to seeing before.
Booth's are also branching out into musical evenings. The Sterling Trio (flute, clarinet and keyboard) will be performing on Saturday 16th April. They're based in Manchester, and were finalists in the UK Young Artists 2010 competition, with music from the renaissance to the present day.
The second concert will be on Friday 22nd April, by The Aquarelle Classical Guitar Quartet, who have played at the Last Night of the Proms!
Tickets are £10, from the bookshop - I think I'll try to get along to the guitar quartet.

And finally, Cusop Village Hall are now putting on events too. As I crossed the marketplace last Thursday, a small flyer was thrust into my hand ("I know you're a local, and you might be interested") for Howden Jones in Concert. This would appear to be a "northern tinged folk music and banter" evening, on Sunday 27th March, and costs £8, tickets from Vision and Sound by the Drill Hall, or Londis (refreshments included).