Festival Field

 

Here are some of the tents going up on the Hay Festival field - it won't be long now!

Forty Years of Cheese

 George the Town Cryer was at the Market yesterday, but he was ringing his bell so someone else could make a speech.  

Nikki, the lady who has been running the Cheese Stall for forty years, is retiring, and yesterday was her last day on the Market.  So John from the Chamber of Commerce (also mostly retired) made a speech thanking her for her long-standing contribution to the Market, including one week of deep snow (he had photos which he passed round) when hers was the only stall that turned up!

Hay will not be losing the Cheese Stall, though - the new people who are taking over from her are already in place and will be turning up as long as local people want to buy good cheese (and spices, and oatmeal, and other similar sundries).

King Richard in the Honesty Garden

 

I was passing the door to the Honesty Garden when Elizabeth came out, and when she saw me she said I had to come and see!

This is the relief bronze of King Richard Booth, newly installed in the wall facing the garden door.  The steps up to the castle go behind the wall, and they're planning to do some planting around the statue, and maybe have a bench there.

"We should say it's good luck for authors to rub his nose!" Elizabeth said.

"But it's Richard!" I said.  "It should be something to do with second hand books!"

Local Events During Hay Festival

 The Hay Festival programme has come out online, and I've had a preliminary scroll through to see what looks interesting - one of the big names this year is Hilary Clinton.  I remember hanging around at the top of Backfold (is it really twenty years ago?!) waiting for Bill Clinton to arrive in Hay - he was horribly late!

Mostly, though I was looking for local interest, and it struck me quite forcibly just how musical people in Hay are.  Performing through the Festival are the Hay Shantymen, the Hay Community Choir, the Hay Climate Choir, the Hay Festival Chorus (made up of members of the Community Choir and others) and a new group focussing on Welsh music, Cantorion Y Gelli.

Also featured are local authors, illustrators and photographers.  Adele Nozedar and Lizzie Harper talk about Adele's new book The Tree Forager, which Lizzie illustrated.  Jenny Valentine is running a writers' workshop, and Billie Charity and John Bulmer are talking about their books of local photography, created fifty years apart.  The Hay Writers Circle also has a spot to talk about new local writing.

There's also a talk about the interesting churches and chapels local to Hay, and The Poisonous Solicitor Walk, visiting sites related to Major Armstrong the Hay Poisoner (or was he?).

Egret

 Walking along the riverside path yesterday, I saw my first egret of the year, standing on a bank of shingle in the middle of the river.  It's good to see it back again.

Bunnies from Hell!

 When I went out to do a bit of shopping this morning, a group of Morris dancers were performing by the Clock Tower.

They wear pink and black, with the usual bells round the legs, and do the banging sticks together style (Border Morris), and the waving handkerchiefs style (Cotswold Morris).

The dancers come from all over England, and the group is known as the Bunnies From Hell!

They're here in Hay all weekend to have fun.

New Booksellers' Map

 The new map of Hay is fresh off the printing press!

This year's colours are blue and yellow, to indicate Hay's support for the people of Ukraine.

The notes on the leaflet also mention the return of the Summer Hay Festival (in actual tents on the edge of town, rather than online).

Also happening this year is the re-opening of Hay Castle, now expected to be in late May, and the first ever Hay Pride event, "A Love Letter to Our Town", on Sunday 12th June.

The leaflet also includes the details of a new bookshop in Hay, due to open in late April.  This will be North Books, at 4 Castle Street, selling new fiction and non-fiction.

There is also a note remembering the booksellers who have died in the past year:

Peter Harries of Boz Books

Pat Thornton of Booth's Books

and Michael Bullock of Hay-on-Wye Booksellers.

In the last few days, another bookseller, Mike Trowell, who worked at Hay Cinema Bookshop, has died, but I suppose it was too late for the leaflet to include him.

Steampunk Day at the Waterworks Museum

 Tomorrow the Waterworks Museum in Hereford are holding a Steampunk day, and I was thinking of going along.  I really enjoyed the events when I went before, with all the costumes, and someone playing the Doctor Who theme on a musical saw, and interesting things to buy, and juggling and a chap putting on a one man play out of a little caravan made up to look like a submarine....

But the bus timetables have changed, so that I would have to go into Hereford either at 6.39 or 10.39 (so, incredibly early with a few hours hanging around until they opened, or an hour later than the bus used to be before the pandemic) and I would have to come back to Hay either at 2pm or 6pm.  So I'd have about an hour there (since I also have to walk out to the Waterworks Museum and back - it's a long way) which is too short, or be there until the early evening, which is too long, when I really ought to be doing other things back at home.

There is no bus back to Hay between 2pm and 6pm.

So, I hope the Steampunks have a brilliant time, and maybe I'll be able to go another time, if the buses change their timetable to be more convenient.

Table and Chair Galleries

 

The Table Gallery on Lion Street has now been joined by  & The Chair, facing the square, where Thru The Lens used to be.  The first exhibition is just visible through the window.

Moving to Larger Premises

 

Here's the Hay Distillery (delicious gin, or so I'm told - I don't drink gin myself), just opened in the old Pottery showroom with a new seating area, with distilling apparatus at the back.

And here's Wye Fret, moving into the old King of Hay shop, with more room for their guitars.