More Winter Festival

 I was back in St Mary's for the talk George Nash was giving on Neolithic Tombs of Wales - I treated myself to the book.  Some of the talk was about Wales, but the rest covered his whole career, including caves in South Africa and tombs in Sweden.  If anything, the church was even fuller than for Metropolis, (and there was cake on offer) and he was a very entertaining speaker.  He was especially pleased by the way Logaston Press had laid out his text and photos.  "Never mind the text - just look at the layout!  And the cover - that's sexy!"  (It's a photo of a dolmen, which he took, but it's a very fine dolmen with a great view).  His next book is on rock art in Wales, so maybe he'll be back as a speaker when it comes out.

I caught some of the poetry at the Poetry Bookshop as I wandered round town - the poets were performing on the Pavement outside the bookshop, and gathering small but appreciative crowds.

The rest of the centre of Hay was taken up with the Food Fair - and crafts.  There was a stall selling miniature books, as badges or as part of bookmarks and so on.  Later I saw a chap wearing one of them on his lapel.  He and his girlfriend were getting ready to get married, and they were giving copies of the book - Pride and Prejudice - as wedding favours, which they had sourced from charity shops and second hand bookshops at random.

I found some very nice honey - Bydafau Woodland Honey from Carmarthenshire - and a bottle of sparkling white wine called Shouting At Weather, from the Black Mountain Vineyard who were at the Secret Garden in the summer.

While I was at work today I got chatting to a lovely couple from Antwerp, who said that they had very much enjoyed the talk at St Mary's called The Dead of Winter: The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas.  This featured an accordion player and the Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk morris dancers!