As our County Councillor, Gareth Ratcliffe will be holding an advice and support surgery at Tomatitos on Thursday 7th October from 6pm to 7pm.
So if anyone locally needs help with any issues that Gareth can do something about, he'll be available to chat.
I went up to Cusop Churchyard yesterday, to see the new headstone on Richard Booth's grave, and it's very tastefully done:
It's not obvious from this angle, but it is in the shape of a book, with "Brenin Y Gelli" written on the spine:
The people at Wren House, on the edge of Hay Car Park, are moving, and they've been having sales of the odds and ends they don't want to take with them for a while now.
Today was the last chance for everything that was left - everything outside the gate was free, including an armchair and a Christmas tree! I came away with a big picture of yachts which really doesn't fit anywhere on my walls (but I love the yachts!) and a useful little folding stool.
I did make a fuss of the dog, too (a lovely black labrador) but he wasn't for sale.
Good news for women in Timbuktu was reported in the Brecon and Radnor Express this week - 44 of them have been trained to recognise Covid-19, and have been given the task of spreading information about the pandemic. There have also been radio broadcasts encouraging girls to return to school, and encouraging girls and women to re-engage with local health clinics.
This was made possible by a grant from the Welsh Government's Wales for Africa Scheme, which was made to Hay2Timbuktu. Hay2Timbuktu has already been involved in training girls in healthcare in the past.
Four health clinics and forty eight families have been helped by the grant, which has also been used to buy water containers, soap, disinfectant and protective equipment.
There's a big piece in the Brecon and Radnor Express this week about the PAVO Volunteer of the Year Awards.
I was very pleased to see that there is now an award in honour of Rev. Ian Charlesworth, who died suddenly last year and who was, among his many interests, chair of PAVO. This is the Ian Charlesworth Calon Award, which was won by the Rhayader Carnival Committee, aka The Misfits, which over the pandemic has been organising virtual carnival events which could be carried out at home. The award was presented, over Zoom, by Rev. Charlesworth's widow Catriona.
Another winner I was pleased to see was Grow For Talgarth, winning the Environment Award this year for their gardens around Talgarth. I very much enjoyed sitting out in one of their gardens on the day I had to go to the doctor's surgery in Talgarth. They have also won a Gold Award from Wales in Bloom, and the All Wales Award in the Large Village category.
HOWLS are looking for a new Treasurer, as the present Treasurer, Nigel, and his wife Rose are moving out of Hay (not very far - they're going to Llangors).
The finances for the Hay-on-Wye Library Supporters are not very complex - he says himself that its not an arduous job, and he's organised it in such a way that it will be easy for a new person to take over.
Meanwhile, Dial-a-Ride are still looking for more volunteer drivers - there's quite a lot of demand for their services!
As I don't have any new gossip to report, I thought it would be nice to share an article I found in the May/June issue of British Archaeology magazine.
A community archaeology project took place around Longtown Castle - or more accurately, both Longtown Castles - in the summers of 2016 and 2017, in a project run by Herefordshire Archaeology. More than 130 volunteers worked on those digs.
I knew about the stone keep on top of a motte, with bailey earthworks - it's pretty obvious when you visit Longtown - but I didn't know that there was another motte at Ponthendre, only about half a mile distant. The project was set up to find out more about the relationship between the two castles.
They discovered that the motte at Ponthendre had not been finished, and had never been occupied. Longtown Castle itself, however, had been built in the remains of a Roman auxiliary fort. Previously it had been thought that there was no Roman presence in Longtown.
The ramparts were larger than would have been expected for a Roman fort, though, and the conclusion was that the ramparts had been made stronger by Harold Godwinson's army when they invaded Wales. Prince Gruffydd ap Llywelyn had sacked Hereford in 1055, and this was a retaliatory invasion. The defences at Hereford were also strengthened.
It is thought that the motte at Ponthendre was built by Walter de Lacy, who was granted the lordship of Longtown after the Norman Conquest of England, to defend the border against the Welsh. As the motte at Ponthendre was never finished, it is thought that de Lacy preferred to use the castle that became his main stronghold, at Longtown, as his headquarters in the area, and it was around this castle that the de Lacys laid out burgage plots to encourage the growth of their "Longe Town of Ewyas Lacy".
There is a new book out from Logaston Press detailing the excavations and the findings. It is The March of Ewyas: the Story of Longtown Castle & the de Lacy Dynasty, by Martin Cook and Neil Kidd.
The costume project for Hay Castle has been somewhat delayed due to the pandemic, but yesterday there was an introductory meeting in the room above the cafe at Booths Bookshop for all the volunteer stitchers.
The idea is that, when the Castle is open to the public, there will be a selection of medieval costumes from around the era of Matilda de Breos for children and adults to try on. As I was involved in 13thC re-enactment, as part of the group Drudion, portraying 13thC Welsh mercenaries, I was there to talk a bit about the clothes and how they would have been worn, and it was great fun!
The group are going to make ten different costumes, from a child king and queen to adult king and queen, with a knight, an archer, and a laundrywoman, and a young Matilda de Breos. The Castle has been gifted some gorgeous fabric - a variety of colours of Welsh flannel, and some opulent brocades for the upper classes to wear. There's also some lovely blue wool which was intended to be a coat, but will be perfect for the adult knight's tunic. They've got a good variety of linen for undergarments as well. They've even got a small grant from the Ashley family (of Laura Ashley), so they can buy a few accessories, such as crowns for the kings and queens!
They've also got some very experienced seamstresses as volunteers. I talked to a couple of ladies who are involved in English Civil War re-enactment - one lady has been in the Sealed Knot since 1984, and her whole family are involved. She had brought along some pattern books for seventeenth century fashions to show around. Emily, in charge of the project, had managed to get hold of a copy of The Medieval Tailor's Assistant, an invaluable book on medieval fashion and how to make it, and another lady brought her own copy along too. So there's lots of expertise there.
They are going to be meeting on Saturday 11th and 25th September, and 9th October, from 2pm to 6pm, with the possibility of spreading out from the room above the cafe into the cafe itself, which is still closed. After that, they'll see how much they've done and if they need to do any further sessions to finish off. They're also getting guest speakers like Mari Fforde, who is going to talk to them about Matilda de Breos and her life.
The costumes are not going to be completely authentic - Emily was a bit worried about clothes that have to be taken on and off over the head, because of the risk of spreading disease, so they are going to be slit up the back, with ties, so people can get them on by diving their arms into the sleeves.
The newest edition of The Cabbage Leaf is out, and they have a great idea for recycling - the magazine is designed to be turned into bookmarks!
In this edition, they choose nine books, which they found in Hay, on environmental issues.
"The books give an overall picture of the crucial issues our world is facing and alert the reader to the harmful effects of our way of life."
The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf, sub-titled The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, The Lost Hero of Science is among the titles chosen. He was an extraordinary man, an explorer, geographer, naturalist and writer in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and one of the first to explain how forests influence the climate.
Rape of the Fair Country by Alexander Cordell is a book that a friend of mine used to re-read every year - it describes the communities of Blaenavon and Nantyglo in South Wales during the height of the Industrial Revolution.
There's also a French graphic novel (it has also been translated into English) called Climate Changed/Saison Brune by Phillipe Squarzoni, and a collection of the writings of Rachel Carson called Lost Woods (she was the author of the famous Silent Spring).
There are also absolutely beautiful botanical drawings by Françoise Verger, one of the creators of The Cabbage Leaf.
There are road works on the way to Hereford which mean that the village of Clehonger is cut off for the next few weeks. Instead of turning at Kingstone Post Office for the church, the bus goes straight ahead, through the village of Thruxton, and joins the main road into Hereford further out than the usual route.
Unfortunately, this road is pretty narrow.
Last week I was taking a trip to Malvern. I had about an hour between the bus arriving in Hereford and the train leaving for Malvern, so I was going to do a bit of shopping. Or I thought I had an hour, according to the timetables....
Then the bus got stuck on the diverted route.
The road is wide enough for a bus to go one way and a car or small van to go the other, but in this case there was a Pontrilas log lorry in front of us facing a wide tractor and trailer - and then the tractor had to get past us, and then we had to get past a big lorry.... Fortunately, there was a new driver on the T14, so there was another driver there to show him the route, and he was able to get off the bus to direct traffic. We were pushed so far into the hedge at that point that he couldn't get off through the normal doors, and had to use the emergency exit on the other side of the bus!
When we passed the tractor, the driver got a round of applause!
Twenty-five minutes later, we were through the traffic jam and back on the open road, but there was no chance of me doing any shopping when we got to Hereford - I stayed on the bus all the way to the railway station, and the Malvern train was already waiting at the platform!
Extinction Rebellion were there because Barclays are the biggest investors in fossil fuels in Europe. The bank finances fracking, coal and Arctic oil and gas extraction. To mitigate climate change, the use of fossil fuels has to be phased out, and the longer we wait, the faster it has to be done in order to prevent more chaotic weather - droughts, forest fires, floods, the melting of ice caps and glaciers, and so on.
Local activists chatted to customers as they went in, or came out, to ask them if they wanted their money to be used to fund fossil fuel investments.
The banner saying "Act Now For Today's Children" was made two years ago, and carried at the big Extinction Rebellion protests in London.
At about midday, an open letter was handed in to the staff in the Parish Hall, explaining why XR are protesting against the bank, and asking them to reconsider their investments.
I've been offline for a few days - my hard drive died!
However, Tim Pugh has fitted a new one, so I'm up and running again, and will be updating the blog as soon as I've trained the new system to do what I want it to.
