Trip to Hereford

 I intended to go to Hereford on Thursday, so I turned up at the bus stop in plenty of time, and waited....

Eventually, I realised that I have technology now, so I could check where the bus was on its route on my phone.  I showed this to two ladies in Hereford when I was coming back yesterday, so for those who don't know - google 'T14 bus timetable' and choose the TrawsCymru site - there's a map at the top of the page showing where the bus is on its route.  Remembering that I can do that makes me feel a lot less anxious about bus travel!  It's much better than huddling there in the rain thinking "I'll just give it five more minutes in case it comes."

Anyway, the bus on Thursday was still in Felinfach when I checked, which would have meant me waiting another half an hour, so I decided to try again on Friday morning.

On Friday morning, the bus was on time (a bit late coming back, due to heavy traffic, but that didn't matter so much) and packed.  Three ladies with small children in buggies got on at Peterchurch - and one buggie was actually for two little dogs - so the wheelchair area was packed out.

I stayed on the bus until the railway station, because I was buying tickets in advance for a holiday early next year.  As always, the nice man in the ticket office gave me a better option for travel than the website had done.

Then I had some banking business to do, which went a lot more easily than I'd expected - this is a hymn of praise to seeing actual real human beings in person to transact business, rather than doing it online.

I had some shopping to do, and I was surprised to see that a lot of shops are already having sales.  I'm not complaining, though!  

I was sorry to see that the Monkhide stall wasn't in the square - I'd been hoping to get a bottle of mead, and their mead is very nice.  I did see Spicing Up the Valleys, though, the Caribbean food stall that comes to Hay on a Thursday now.  I can recommend his goat curry, which I tried last week.

I had time for a Wainwrights Golden Ale (nectar!) in the Lichfield Vaults, and while I was there I picked up the latest edition of the Hereford Hopvine, the magazine from the local branch of CAMRA.  It contained sad news.  They will not be running Beer on the Wye next year.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  One is that the Rowing Club is having landscaping work done, and they want to be able to see it when its done to make sure they can get the marquees in.  The other is a lack of volunteers.  They managed to get 130 volunteers to serve beer and run the beer festival over the weekend this year, but there are fewer people involved in the planning stages than there used to be and it's getting too much for the ones who are left.  So, they're going to pause for a year, and use that time to try to recruit more volunteers for the organising committee, and hold a major review of how the festival is run and how it can be improved, so they can return, refreshed, for a festival in 2026.