It shows the genocide in Gaza, with stories from people living in Gaza round the edges - one is just visible above the car at the back.
On a day like this, I wish I liked the taste of cider better!
The square and the Buttermarket were full of stalls selling local cider from a range of small producers.
There was also live music in the Buttermarket.
Meanwhile, on Brecon Road, there are a few stalls this year. My friend got a runner bean plant from one of them, and another had been set up by Herefordshire City of Sanctuary, a group set up to welcome refugees. They run a drop in centre at the Friends Meeting House in Herefordshire every Friday from 10am to noon, and offer all sorts of support to the people who need it. Their website is www.herefordshire.cityofsanctuary.org and they are part of a national organisation at www.cityofsanctuary.org They have groups across the UK and in Ireland.
Yesterday evening was the usual date for the monthly meeting of the Painscastle Local Interest Group (mostly history, but anything else that takes their fancy, too), and they decided to use the meeting time to visit Cusop Castle and Church just before the Dig starts.
A gazebo had been set up on the Castle site for tea and biscuits, with a good view of where the archaeologists and volunteers are going to dig. John Price was there to film, and I got a mic because I was going to say a few words about the Castle. That was after an introduction by Sue, and a few words from Jane (who actually owns the Castle site). We actually know very little about the castle itself, which is why the dig is so exciting - we should be able to find out a lot more about what went on there, and how old the site is. What we do know is that it is not a typical Norman castle - there's no motte, just a ringwork and the possible remains of a stone building.
Then we moved into the church, where Celia, who is one of the churchwardens, gave a talk about the history of the church and what they are doing in the churchyard, which is very wildlife friendly. They've had help from the kids who come up to stay in Trewern House from Dagenham and Essex, and from young people doing their Duke of Edinburgh awards. Recently an oak tree fell down, and Danny Thomas the chainsaw sculptor is going to carve the fallen trunk into a variety of local animals and birds.
It was a lovely evening, and the people from Painscastle were interested and asked some good questions.
I'd started to think that I wasn't going to see anything quirky at the Festival this year - then I went into town and found a busker playing the Uilleann pipes next to Spar.
There don't seem to be quite so many people around as last year, though of course the mid week part of the Festival is always a bit quieter than the two weekends.
I also saw three red kites circling over the middle of town!
The River Wye has become the first river in Wales to receive a charter of rights to protect it.
There was a ceremony at the Warren and the charter has been endorsed by councils, campaigners and environmental groups along the length of the river. Councillor Elissa Swinglehurst of Herefordshire Council helped to create the charter, and other signatories are the Forest of Dean Council, Bannau Brycheiniog National Park and the Wye Valley National Landscape. Powys County Council and Monmouthshire Council were also represented at the ceremony.
The charter gives the river the following rights:
The right to flow and perform natural functions
The right to biodiversity
the right to be free from pollution
the right to be supported by a healthy catchment area
the right to regenerate
the right to representation
Ecologist Dr Louise Bodnor was appointed as the official Voice of the Wye in April 2025, and sits in meetings of Herefordshire County Council's Wye Catchment Nutrient Management Board, where she has the right to vote on behalf of the river.
The charter comes at a time when the river's health has been officially downgraded to "unfavourable - declining" by Natural England, and the court case brought by Leigh Day is in the High Court, seeking to hold Avara Foods and Welsh Water responsible for the increase in pollution in the river.
I got out of the Festival crowds the other day when a friend took me out to see a local castle I'd never visited before.
Old Castleton is perched on a promontory overlooking the water meadows of the River Wye, which meanders like mad across the valley there, and it's got three baileys! I had great fun scrambling up and down the banks and the motte. We also had to climb a couple of gates that had been put across the lane, possibly to stop sheep from the field just above from getting into the farmyard.
While looking at the map, I realised that we were also very close to Clock Mills. This is a private house, and it was once owned by Rafael Sabatini, the author of swashbuckling adventures early in the last century. Some of them were made into films starring Errol Flynn, and Sabatini invited Errol Flynn to stay at the house for a few weeks in the 1930s, for a bit of peace and quiet. So we did a little detour so I could see the house, just from the gateway.
I've been bimbling around town today, pretending to be a tourist.
Fair in the Square is on, with the usual vintage stalls, food stalls and live music. I treated myself to a falafel, which was very good, though the estimated wait time of ten minutes might have been a little optimistic!
In the Buttermarket and Cheesemarket there were more stalls, mostly of the crafty variety, and up at the Castle there was a craft fair on the lawn. They had live music, too, from a girl with a harp accompanied by a singer, guitarist and violinist.
More food trucks were in the Honesty bookshop, and down on Belmont Road the Secret Wine Bar was open, selling local Black Mountain wines (and some from a friend's vineyard near Presteigne).
The garden was open at Tinto House, along with small art gallery on one side and vintage French linens on the other. There's an art exhibition in the empty shop near Kilvert's, too.
And there are real owls at the Wobbly Owl shop this afternoon.
I'd booked a ticket to the very first event at Hay Festival - well, the very first for adults. The lady introducing the event said that there had been eight thousand kids from schools who had been bussed in for the day, and there would be a similar number of older children on the Friday.
They were trying a new format for talks. Normally, three guests would sit on stage, and be given prompting questions by the moderator, to get a discussion going. This time, though, after an introduction by Simon Armitage (who also read one of his poems, about a late library book), each guest got up to give a mini lecture, after which there was time for a few questions.
Tony Robinson said that he had been expecting the first type of event, but he gave a very good talk anyway about what history is, and how all the writers of history have had an agenda that you need to know something about before you take their account at face value.
Katherine Rundell talked about the importance of encouraging critical thinking in young people in a time of AI that pretty much agreed with everything you said and gave inaccurate information. She's done a lot of work in schools, so she's seen changes as pupils start to rely on ChatGPT and the like.
Dallas Campbell started by saying he'd been going to talk about one thing, but had been inspired by the previous speakers to talk about something completely different! He's interested in space archaeology, and talked about moon regolith and how it can be used to make all sorts of useful things, from cinder blocks to build Moon habitats for astronauts, to silicon chips. He had also brought along Neil Armstrong's space suit - well, not really Neil Armstrong's space suit ("that's behind bullet proof glass at the Smithsonian!") but the space suit that had been made for Ryan Gosling for a film where he played Neil Armstrong. Which is nearly as good!
This meant that I passed the BBC Marquee on my way home, just at the moment when several different breeds of sheep were lining up, with their handlers holding leashes, to process up the aisle to the stage!
Bizarrely, the music they walked in to was the House of the Rising Sun!
I have no idea which BBC programme this was for - it wasn't up on BBC Sounds when I went to look.
Before I dived into the first day of Hay Festival, I went up to the Castle to see the new exhibition there.
The exhibition is called Borderlands: From the Welsh Borders to Antarctica, and the most spectacular exhibits are the Antarctic tents decorated with multicoloured gloves, flags and sleeves, representing many different cultures.
There was also a film in the entrance hall about beating the bounds, with a laid hedge, local maps on cloth hung over the balustrade, and there are pictures and sculptures scattered around the Castle.
Outside in the grounds, Sally Matthews had just installed one of her animal sculptures:
Meanwhile in the Castle Yard, there's a small pop up art gallery - the exhibition there is called Fragile Wild, and the paintings are detailed panels of foliage and flowers.
The Borderlands exhibition runs until the 31st August.
The internet hasn't quite caught up with events yet, as the page showing that the Rose and Crown is open is still up. In reality, it has been closed for a while, and the tenants have gone.
When Linda and Paul ran the pub, successfully for many years, they wanted to buy the building, but at that time the owner didn't want to sell. Since Paul and Linda retired, none of the new tenants have managed to stick around for very long.
So now the owner of the pub is selling up. It's a historic building, and I'm pretty sure it's Grade II listed, and it needs quite a bit of work doing to it - which is more complicated because of the listed status.
I hope someone does take it on, and give it the tender loving care it deserves.
I think it's a lovely idea - North Books are offering an hour's private browsing time before they open properly with coffee, and pastries from Baka bakery across the road.
Booking is essential - you can't just drop in.
I've been busy over the last few days with meetings about local history. There's some fascinating research happening around Cusop Dingle, which I can't really talk about yet - and also I need to do a lot more research for my part of the project.
Meanwhile, plans for the Cusop Castle dig are going well, and we're all looking forward to seeing what we will find!
And, of course, we're gearing up at work for the Festival, which is almost upon us!
I just found a flyer from Dial-a-Ride advertising a new service.
If members of the scheme need help with their shopping, there is now an assisted shopping service. The trained volunteers will go round with you reaching items, checking labels and finding products.
The service runs on Tuesday mornings - contact the Dial-a-Ride office for further details on 01497 821616.
I had such fun yesterday, getting all my re-enactment stuff out (plus some from Sue from the Theatre Group) to demonstrate medieval weapons and arrows at Cusop Castle. The audience was small but appreciative, and there was one young lad in particular who was very knowledgeable (and possibly a future re-enactor).
John Price filmed the entire talk. Keith Hodgetts took some photos to put up on Facebook - which is why I have a new picture on the sidebar - and Barbara Shaw did a little edited highlights video to the theme from Robin of Sherwood (I always wanted to be a Merry Man, well, Merry Person, anyway). That's also up on Facebook, and I'm absolutely delighted at how well it all went, and how much people seemed to like it.
So, the results are in.
Plaid Cymru will now be running the Senedd, with Reform in second place.
Locally, Jane Dodds has become the only Lib Dem in Wales to get a seat. The new voting method meant that each area sends six candidates to the Senedd, and for Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd, the new constituency since the last elections, the six are Jane Dodds for the Lib Dems, 3 members of the Reform party, which got 33% of the vote, and two members of Plaid Cymru.
Labour and the Conservatives got just over 8% of the votes each, so ended up with no-one going into the Senedd here, and the Greens were just behind them with 6.7%.
The turnout was 53%, which is not bad for local elections.
So Rhun ap Iowerth, the Plaid Cymru leader, will probably become the new First Minister - his party got 43 seats, but there has to be a vote next week to confirm that.
Reform got 34 seats, so are the party of opposition.
Then Labour got 9 (they lost a lot of support), followed by the Welsh Conservatives at 7, the Greens with 2 including Anthony Slaughter, the Welsh Green leader, and finally the Lib Dems with one.
43 seats is not a majority - Plaid Cymru needed six more seats for that - but they do say they will reach out to other parties to form a new Welsh government.
When I picked up my copy of the B&R from Spar this week, there was a wrap around advert for the Reform Party with it (the proper front page is inside).
"That's a bit cheeky, isn't it?" I said, and the lady behind the counter said they'd had lots of complaints, with a lot of people leaving the advert behind in the shop - she'd got a big bagful out the back for recycling.
Meanwhile, I have voted and there was a steady stream of people coming into the polling station, even that early in the morning.
Don't forget to vote tomorrow!
Here in Hay, most of the posters seem to be for Jane Dodds, the Liberal Democrat.
Other candidates are available!
I think the results across the country are going to be quite interesting.
The next Cabinet of Curiosity event is on Saturday 9th May, and it comes in two parts.
The first is a walk from the Bean Box cafe under Hay Bridge to the Warren, starting at 2.30pm. The walk will be led by Dr. Emily Warner, from the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery at the University of Oxford, and Jenny Dicker, farmer and specialist in land management.
The second is a film at the Globe about non-native and invasive plants, followed by a panel discussion. That starts at 7pm.
The panel consists of:
John Crellin, the County Recorder for Botany for Brecknockshire and author of the recently published Flora of Brecknockshire - he'll have a few copies available for sale. This was the life's work of John's friend Mike Porter, who died shortly before the book was finished.
Imogen Cripps is head grower at a local walled garden, and she will come with some vegetables from the garden.
Layla Robinson is a dried flower artist who has created many beautiful arrangements for the Cabinet of Curiosities. She also has a new book out called Everlasting Blooms.
Beverley Lewis is the Biodiversity Liason Officer for Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.
Sophie Ferrier is the Director of Hay Regenerative Soils and an artist, and she will come with some of her creations and experiments.
And the facilitator of the panel is Matthew Pryor, a journalist who trained at the Royal Horticultural Society.
The previous talks, walks and films put on by the Cabinet of Curiosities have all been fascinating.
I don't know if I'll be able to get to the Globe, since I'm giving a talk myself on Saturday afternoon, and I might have run out of energy!
I was just putting my recycling outside the front door when two ladies waved to me from across the street.
They pointed up to the stone sign over the middle of the row of almshouses.
"We were just reading about the poor and indignant women - and here you are, right on cue!"
(It's actually "poor and indigent", but who says indigent any more?)
I've just seen the announcement that Mark and Charmaine McHugo are closing their restaurant in Hay after seven years. Chapters is in part of the building of St John's Chapel, opposite Tomatitos. They are serving their last meals on 16th May.
Taking over will be chef Matt Sampson. He intends to serve just twelve covers (Chapters presently serves twenty two covers), and plans a fourteen course tasting menu focusing on fish and shellfish, with a few meat courses - all for £98!
Not the sort of place to pop into for a snack, then - more of a very special night out.
I'm really glad I decided to go for a walk up Cusop Hill yesterday, when it was so hot I didn't even need a coat (and I nearly always wear a coat). I'd been looking at some aerial photos of the area and saw what looked awfully like crop marks on top of Cusop Hill - and my curiosity was aroused.
The public footpath goes up past Capodolwyn, and I was pleased to see that someone is renovating the house after many years of it lying empty. On the way up the field, I startled a hare, who loped off into the distance, and when I had a sit down later, higher up the hill, a red kite flew by below me. There's another ruined building above Capodolwyn, and I was lucky enough to find a piece of a slipware bowl there, probably from the 17th century. I was up that way because I slightly mislaid the path, so I was following the fence line round until I came to the stile, which is usable though not in very good repair.
The views from the top of Cusop Hill are spectacular - all down the Wye Valley and across the plains of Herefordshire. The traces of archaeology were less so. I think that the markings I had taken to be ditches were actually natural features draining the water from boggy areas - though there had been some stone quarrying up there at some point, and there's a fairly modern pond with the spoil heap from digging it out right next to it.
Still, it was a glorious day, and the hedgerows were full of wild flowers as I came back into Hay.
This morning the weather was decidedly chilly and grey, but I had to go into Hereford to do a few things. The Golden Valley is still blocked off, I think at Peterchurch, so the bus turned round to go down the hill and cross the river, for a non-stop journey to Hereford. Despite the greyness (and some rain) it was lovely to see all the apple orchards in blossom.
One of the things I wanted to do was to look at the local history section of Hereford Library. The Library has been in temporary accommodation in the Town Hall for some time now, and it's a very ornate building inside as well as out. Being temporary, until the new premises in the Shire Hall are ready, there is only a small selection of books available, but I still found something useful. I also joined the library, so next time I can check out up to twenty books (!). I was given the choice of four different pictures to go on my new library card, and I chose the one with shelves of books facing each other, with birds flying between them.
On the way back, the bus was labelled the X15 rather than the X44, and again went non-stop on the other side of the river from the Golden Valley.
