Fabulous Thirties

 What a fun concert last night!

Martin Litton played some dazzling piano pieces by people like Fats Waller, and Janice Day sang some of the popular songs of the era - Night and Day, Mad about the Boy, songs from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, and more.

In the first half, she also invited members of the audience to volunteer to come up and sing with her - I suspect they had rehearsed this, as the Wicked Squire didn't seem to need to look at his script very much.  It was a love triangle between Janice, the Fair Maiden, the Wicked Squire and the Honest Blacksmith (who eventually won her hand).

In the second half, we got Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters!  I didn't catch his name, but the chap was a Bing Crosby impersonator, and he's now ninety two years old!  He's also got a fine voice, doing Don't Fence Me In with the "Andrews Sisters" as backing group.  He also helped to lead the singalong of You're My Everything, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, Underneath the Arches and You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.

In September they are doing a concert as part of Hay Music's weekend entitled The Healing Power of Music, with Martin playing music from some of the Doctors of Jazz.

And next Saturday, from 3pm, there will be a concert by Lucy Green and Rosemary Firman (on piano) called Songs of Love and Longing from Paris, Vienna, Milan and Leipzig.  This will be a much more classical affair than the Fabulous Thirties, and it will be free, with a retiring collection in aid of church funds.  There will also be drinks and cakes! 

White Rabbit

 

The Alice in Wonderland themed decoration is coming along at the new bookshop where Bullring Antiques used to be.

Marble Run at the Castle

 A friend told me there was a new exhibit at the Castle, so I went up to see.  

It's a large model of the Castle on the outside, and when you go round to the other side there are three separate marble runs inside, made with wooden and wire runs, going round big wheels and up steps - it's fascinating to watch!

Meanwhile in the entrance hall, the quilters are still meeting - every Saturday morning through August, they told me.  They said they normally have three or four small quilts on the go at a time.

And on Thursday 30th July, at 7pm, Barbara Erskine will be talking about her new novel The Valley of Ravens in the Great Hall, to Professor Anne Rowe.  Tickets are £16, and are available from www.haycastletrust.org.

It's another time slip novel - in the present Eve is restoring an abandoned cottage, and in 1260 Alys is tending to the wounds of Prince Llewelyn.... 

X44 Bus Route Changes

 I needed to go into Hereford on Thursday, and decided to catch the 13.35 bus and spend the afternoon there - something I haven't done for a long time, after a bad experience with Stagecoach involving a broken down bus and a last bus that didn't run (that cost me £50 in taxi fare, and Stagecoach swore blind that they'd run the bus, so wouldn't give me any compensation).

Sergeants seem to be doing well in running the buses when they say they will, even if some of them are at odd intervals through the day.  However, the routes have changed, because of major roadworks at Peterchurch, which blocks the entire Golden Valley.

So when the bus came, it turned round at the top of the carpark and stopped at the Brecon bus stop.  We all went over, including the chap who had been busking in the morning, with his guitar and all his gear on a little trolley, were assured that the bus was going to Hereford, and went across the bridge and along the road on the other side of the river.

On the way back, at 17.22, I expected the same thing, but the bus went on the usual Golden Valley route until the edge of Peterchurch.  Then it turned up the side lane to Fairfield School, and along the lane parallel to the main road.  It was so narrow that the hedge was scraping the sides of the bus from both sides.  It rejoined the main road at the Nag's Head, and went on normally from there. 

Questionnaire on the Future of Hay

 There was a stall on the market yesterday where they were handing out QR codes for a questionnaire about the facilities in Hay, and what local people want to see in the future.  I don't do QR codes, so fortunately they also had paper copies to fill in.  It's being done by the Town Council, so they can update the Town Plan.

The questions are wide-ranging, and they invite people to add pages if they have additional comments.

They ask how people find out about local news and events, how to improve the town centre, what to do about tourists, affordable housing for local people, traffic, public transport, environmental concerns including the health of the river, historic buildings, plans for a new community centre, the public toilets, provision of facilities and groups for young people and older people, and employment opportunities locally.

The forms are anonymous, but if you do give your name, it will be entered in a prize draw for a £20 voucher to be spent with a Hay business.

The paper forms can be given in at the Council office at the Pavilion on Brecon Road - or one of the Zero Waste ladies at the stall said she could take them, so I'm going up to hand mine in shortly.  The survey will be running until 30th September, so I'm assuming that they will be on the Thursday market again until then. 

Swan Well

 

Someone has been decorating Swan Well with flowers!

The Fabulous Thirties

 Vintage by the Wye are having a concert on Thursday 30th July, at 7pm at St Mary's Church.

The title is the Fabulous Thirties, the performers are Janice Day and Martin Litton, and they are always good fun.  Songs will include 42nd Street, Mad about the Boy, Night and Day, and more.

Tickets are £20, but only £17 for early birds, from vintagebythewye.com 

Community Campus

 The Summer Fair seems to have been a success, and HADSCAL were there with their plans for the Community Campus.

Some parts of the plan have already been put into operation - they were also giving away produce from the community garden there.  They now have money from Powys County Council (from the Brecknockshire reserve), the backing of Hay Town Council, and a team of local architects and planning consultants hard at work.

What they want for the site is a Community building, with room for the Youth Club and Dial-a-Ride offices, and rooms for meetings, performances and local events.

They also (being a sports organisation) want a swimming pool, gym, indoor multi-use area, outdoor equipment and an all weather pitch for field sports.

And they want ten business units - the rent from these would fund the rest of the campus.

All the buildings would be eco-friendly. 

They're looking for feedback from the local community, and can be reached at www.hadscal.org 

Afternoon Concert

 On Saturday morning I went into Hay via the footpath past the Swan Well, and then down to the riverside path, which meant that I passed the gateway to St Mary's church just as a chap was sorting out posters there.  He reminded me of the concert that afternoon, which I had completely forgotten about.

So at 3pm I turned up for a wonderful concert given by the Hay Madrigal singers, in aid of The Lucy and Charlie Charity in Uganda.  They support 43 orphans and a small community in Western Uganda, and the charity started with a donation from two Hay residents to a young man in Uganda, so it has strong local connections.  They are trying to start their own school for the orphans, so they don't have to walk miles to the nearest school.  If anyone is interested in donating, the link is:

http://gogetfunding.com/lucy-and-charlie-charity-center-uganda/

Entrance to the concert was £10, and the church had halved it's usual rate for hiring the space.

We started with Felix Mendelssohn, and moved on to his sister Fanny, whose work was mostly not performed or published in her lifetime, but is now being discovered and performed.  One of the pieces was all about how everything in Creation was singing, so how could she be silent?

The tenor sang Death and the Maiden, in German, and there was a duet from Yeomen of the Guard by Gilbert and Sullivan.  I didn't get one of the flyers, so I don't remember all the pieces, but it was all very good indeed.  Other songs were Yum Yum from the Mikado singing "The sun whose rays are all ablaze"; Rosemary the pianist played a Song Without Words, and there was some Handel.

And also very good cake (though almost all of it had almonds in it!)

There are some other concerts coming up from the same group of singers.

On Saturday 8th August, at 3pm, Lucy Green and Rosemary Firman will be performing songs and piano music by a variety of composers, under the heading Songs of Love and Longing from Paris, Vienna, Milan and Leipzig.  Entry is free, with a retiring collection in aid of church funds.

And on Saturday 22nd August, from 3.30pm, there's Soirees musicales - the story of Robert and Clara Schumann in their own words and music, narrated by Birgitta Claus and Steve Goodridge (the tenor), with Rosemary Firman on the piano.  This concert is also free, with a retiring collection in aid of church funds, and both concerts will have cake and drinks.

We're really very lucky in Hay to have so many talented people who are willing and able to perform for us! 

Summer Show

 Hay Summer Show happens tomorrow, on Hay Playing Fields from 10am.

Lots to see and do, of course.

Lucky Seven brewery are running the bar, and Origin Pizza and Hungry Farmer are providing food.

There will be stalls from local makers and sellers, games, a dog show, bouncy castle and face painting, as well as traditional craft and produce competitions.

There's live music from 3.30pm, and shows by Ferret World, Paws for Thought Dog Agility and Steve Kaos.

Also, HADSCAL will be at their growing space, giving away free produce from their gardens.  They'll also have information about the latest plans for community developments.

It sounds like a brilliant day out - and I'll miss it, because I'm at work! 

 

Steinway Piano

 Sadly, I missed the concerts at St Mary's at the weekend, but I did happen to pop in for a Way-on-High magazine while one of the pianists was practicing on the magnificent Steinway Grand Piano that they had brought with them.

Which made me even more sorry that I missed the actual concerts. 

Tapas at Tomatitos

 My neighbour took me out to dinner to thank me for watering her plants while she was away (none of them died!).  She hasn't eaten out much in Hay before, so I gave her a list of options, and she chose Tomatitos so that we could order a variety of dishes and nibble - it being too hot for a big, heavy meal.

This was also a good choice because of the garden area at the back, which she had been unaware of.  It was a bit too hot and stuffy inside, even after 7pm.  

We had patatas bravas (because I love Brave Potatoes), a cauliflower dish and something with blue cheese and little bits of beetroot, along with a glass of Pinot Grigot - not too much to eat, and a very pleasant evening chatting. 

Beer on the Wye

 I went into Hereford yesterday afternoon with a friend and her two adult children for the nineteenth Beer on the Wye.  It's also running today and tomorrow, at the Rowing Club in Hereford.

 

Because of works that the Rowing Club were doing on the field, the beer festival wasn't held last year.  This year, because of the improvements to the site, the marquee has been erected at 90 degrees to it's position in all the previous festivals - which was a bit disorienting.  Inside, it looks exactly the same, but when you look outside, suddenly you have no idea where the river is!

We got used to it over the afternoon, and even sat at a table by the river (under an umbrella) with a lovely couple from Cardiff who were doing a crossword puzzle.  My friend is a crossword fanatic - she'd even brought some crosswords to do at the festival herself - so we had a lot of fun helping them to solve it and chatting.

Usually at a beer festival I like to try as many different beer styles as possible (subject to my cut off point of a maximum of three pints - any more than that and I feel awful the next day).  So this means six halves, or nine thirds.  However, this time there were two breweries there with beers I wanted to taste, and they were both Gold beers (somewhere around the bitter/IPA area, but now a distinct style of its own).  Uley's Hog's Wallop and Woodfordes Bure Gold were both delicious, but the Uley packed a slightly harder punch at 5.2%.  Then my friend wanted to try the Solstice from Three Tuns brewery at Bishops Castle - we'd both visited the pub at different times some years ago, so it was a bit of a trip down memory lane.  Solstice is a bitter, and very pleasant on a hot day.

I wanted to try a mild, so I went for Old Magic from Magic Dragon in Wrexham - again for nostalgic reasons, because I used to live near Wrexham.  I hadn't come across the brewery before, but it was a very good mild.

I finished off with the Jaipur Union IPA from Thornbridge.  I first tasted Jaipur at a Beer on the Wye (I think it might have won supreme champion of the festival that year) and since then they have installed a traditional Burton Union fermentation system in the brewery (which is something that beer nerds get quite excited about).  It was delicious, and a good beer to round off the session before we went for the last bus home. 

The champion beers of the festival (and also ciders and perries) were announced while we were there, but I didn't write them down.  I think Makerfield from Weird Dad brewery in Newport was the supreme champion this year - it's a pale ale, and Jarl, a blond ale from Fyne Ales in Argyll, all the way from Scotland, was also mentioned, as well as Titan from Left Handed Giant brewery in Bristol, a pale ale. 

And there was a treat when we got back to Hay - a traction engine came down the road just as we got off the bus!

 

Lily Forwood Exhibition

 A friend said I should go to see the exhibition at The Table by Lily Forwood.

She makes big pictures in mixed media, many of them of railway stations, and my friend pointed out that the orange lines on some of them are made from old train tickets.  

She also does local landscapes like the Cat's Back and the Twmpa, and there was one small and very pretty one of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.

Two of the pictures have already sold. 

Fir Restaurant

 

The new restaurant has opened at St John's, and a friend stopped me in Spar to rave about how good it was!  As it's a tasting menu, the portions are small - but the flavour, he assured me, is intense and amazing.

I hope the chef does well. 

Beer on the Wye

 This weekend, in Hereford at the Rowing Club, is the nineteenth Beer on the Wye.

They had a year off last year, while the Rowing Club did work on the festival field, which will mean that the marquee is at 90 degrees to the previous position parallel to the river.

Inside the marquee there will be over 300 beers, ciders and perries, food trucks, and nine different live bands in the evenings.  I've already had a look at the beer list, and they've got a couple of my favourites on it - two from Uley brewery in Gloucestershire, and one from Woodeforde's in Norfolk - so I'm looking forward to it.

Book Fair and Sundial

 The PBFA Book Fair was in the Castle yesterday - a lovely collection of old and rare books from dealers who had come from all over the country to take part.  

I was almost afraid to touch one exhibit - I have no idea what the dealer was asking for it, but it was a handwritten notebook with a map, and I think it was notes for one of Wainwright's walking books (the word Troutbeck was there on the page).

Meanwhile on the Castle lawn, there was a giant sundial!  

This is the Golden Valley Sundial, and it's just visiting Hay Castle for a few days.

It's also a ball game, and several children (and adults) were going round the circle throwing balls through the holes in the sculptures. 

 

Megalith Hunting and the New Strand, Eardisley

 A friend told me about some huge stones he had seen while he was out walking, and he thought they might be prehistoric standing stones.  He sent me some photos he'd taken.  It sounded interesting, so yesterday I went out with another friend who has a car, and we went to investigate.

The stones were supposed to be close to a farm, which is close to Hay, but so remote that it doesn't even have a road passing the farmhouse - you have to go up a narrow farm track.  We parked at the edge of the farmyard, and knocked at the house.  The lady there was friendly, but at first she couldn't think of any old stones on the property.  Then she had a bright idea, and led us across the garden, through a gate - and there they were.  

Except they weren't old stones at all.  There's a fairly modern barn at the top of the farmyard, and she told us that they needed to level the ground to get it in, so they also cut into the side of the hill - and that's where they dug out the big stones.  They just put them by the side of the track, where they'd be out of the way.  So sadly, there's nothing to report to the Megalithic Portal website after all.

All that hadn't taken long at all, so we went on to the New Strand at Eardisley for coffee and cake - and very nice cake it was, too.  I had the jam sponge, and my friend had carrot cake, and we spread our maps out over the table to compare notes on our local history research.

While we were there a group of older ladies came in, who were obviously regulars, to have lunch - the chips smelled delicious! 

Post Box Topper

 

This time the post box topper is celebrating Hay Market and the traders.

And when I was walking through town, I found a young man busking at the top of the Pavement, who was playing a hurdy-gurdy!  I don't think I've ever seen anyone  busking with a hurdy-gurdy before!

New Bench

 

There's a new bench in the Honesty Gardens, and the plaque says that it is in memory of Dr Derek Wilson, who was a local GP for 35, and also played the organ.  He died in 2024, aged 91.

The plaque also remembers Dr Wilson's son Nick, who died in 2019, aged 52.

It was donated by the Keith Leighton Neurology Fund, which is a local charity.