Camera Club Open Evening

I had a lovely evening at the Camera Club.
I was impressed with how organised they were - everyone was given name badges as they came in. It was also nice to see Sara, who I know from the Baskie and Stitch and Bitch - she'd come along to see if she could get some help with the technical side of photography. She knows how to use a dark room, but computers confuse her! A couple of the members suggested a program called Lightroom (I think), but they also do regular "Ask the Panel" sessions for questions like that. The next one is next week, on January 14th, at the Masonic Hall from 7.30pm.
There's a lot going on - the present programme of events runs until the end of February, with something going on every week. Non-members are charged £5 entry - and there's always home made cake! There are also competitions. I might go back for the Members Night on 4th February, when one of the members is talking about a trip he did around Northern Spain in an old sports car.
Set up in one corner was a laptop showing a slideshow of members' photos on a screen. There was a wide variety, including still life, action shots of surfers, horses galloping through water in the Camargue, Buddhist priests in Nepal, landscapes....
Members come from quite a wide area, too. I met people who had come from Knighton, Llangorse and Talgarth, as well as Hay. And they are interesting people, too - one chap has a daughter who is something important in Twitter, another used to work for Oxfam, and I got into some fascinating conversations, including one about politics in Estonia and Latvia - one of the members has Latvian grandparents. He said his name means "oak tree", apparently a common surname in Latvia.
Another lady (there are a few more men than women in the club at the moment) was also singing the praises of what she called the Walking Wounded walking group. It's a group that meets at the bus shelter in Hay on Mondays at 2pm, for people who have health or mobility problems to have a gentle walk together, and who couldn't manage the route marches that the Hay Walkers go on. Some of them have had strokes, for instance. One of their walks soon will be starting from Llyswen, up a side road that is little used, so they'll be forming a convoy of cars to get there.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit that I was given two After Eight mints when I mentioned I'd be writing about the Camera Club in this blog!

Money for Oz

The Doll's House Shop on Brecon Road are making a collection to send to Australia, to help the people and animals affected by the bushfires. They're asking for cash only, which will be sent directly out there.

More Shopping in Hereford

Still taking advantage of the sales, and the free Saturday bus, but this time my mission was to buy a new phone handset. While I was looking after my neighbour's cat she got a claw entangled in my tablecloth and pulled everything to the floor. It wasn't her fault (and she spent some time afterwards hiding under the bed), and I thought I'd got away without any damage until someone phoned me. When I picked the receiver up, it rattled.
It was a very old phone, and I'd been thinking I'd have to replace it soon anyway.
The only thing to do seemed to be to make the long trek out to PC World again. In the large area they have devoted to mobile phones, I found precisely 3 handsets, one of which had extra big buttons for partially sighted people. At least a phone is a lot lighter to carry round than a printer.
Back in the town centre, I managed to look past all the black trousers in Marks and Spencers, and spent my gift cards on a linen shirt in "dusted lilac" and a pale tan pair of trousers.
I also picked up a nice pair of teal corduroy trousers from the Edinburgh Woolen Mill in their sale, which was very convenient for a pot of Oolong tea at the Antique Tea Room, as a brief break from retail therapy.
My next purchases were pure frivolity - I went in The Entertainer toy shop, where they had some Star Wars figures on special offer. I came away with Rose Tico in her First Order disguise, in a box with BB-8 and the black First Order droid, Poe Dameron in his X-wing flight suit and Princess Leia in her costume from The Empire Strikes Back, on the Hoth ice planet. This made me very happy.

Camera Club

A lovely man came into the shop today to invite me to the first Camera Club meeting of the year. It'll be on Tuesday at 7.30pm at the Masonic Hall, and there will be drinks and nibbles.
I'm considering it - it would be nice to be able to improve my minimal photographic skills.

Australia is On Fire

Hay may be a small town on the Welsh Borders, but it's far from isolated - the people who live here have links all over the world.
I was talking to one lady who has relatives in Australia. They are safe, but they told her about what had happened to one of their neighbours in the bush fires that are still going on. He's a farmer, and he's been forced to abandon his 10,000 head of cattle to fend for themselves. The family were able to evacuate, but his farm house has burned down (fortunately he has another house the family can move into).
So that's just one small snapshot of what's happening in the bush fires, which now cover such a huge area that the plume of smoke has reached New Zealand, over 2,500 miles away.

The Rise of Skywalker (with Spoilers)

I went to the first showing of The Rise of Skywalker this afternoon, at the Bookshop Cinema. As I said to Haydn behind the bar, I was there for the very first Star Wars film, and here I was for the last of the nine films. So I was slightly apprehensive - this was something I'd loved since I was 16. Could they really bring it to a satisfactory conclusion?
The cinema was about half full, and the first couple of rows were pretty much all kids - who were very quiet. At one point, I found myself saying a line along with a character, and realised the rest of the audience were completely silent....
There was a lot to pack in to this movie, to finish off the latest trilogy, and also all 9 of the main Star Wars films, so it hit the ground running and didn't slow down.
It was also supposed to be the farewell to Carrie Fisher, but they couldn't do that after her untimely death, so we just got a few scenes written around footage of her that they already had.
I knew Lando Calrissian turned up, having seen him in the trailers, but I wasn't expecting Han or Luke. It was nice to see them again, really for the last time - but the sort-of-redemption of Kylo Ren seemed to happen much too easily. And I choose to believe that he and the Emperor were lying to Rey about her ancestry. It was also a great pity that Rose Tico got so little to do.
I did like the explanation for the cavalry charge (well, they were supposed to be something other than horses, but still....), and I laughed when Chewie finally got his medal - and the blowing up of the transporter was a clear tip of the fedora to the first Indiana Jones movie, where Indy thought Marion had been killed.
So, I thought it was a good film, with a lot of work to do to tie up all the loose ends, and I also think it missed the target some of the time.
When I came out, there were already people queuing for the second showing.

Singing in the New Year

I don't normally mention the acoustic music sessions at Baskerville Hall, because I go nearly every week and saying that I enjoyed the music would get a bit repetitive (because I always do enjoy the music).
But this week's session was actually on New Year's Day, and we started the year as we mean to go on, with a mix of older popular music, folk, poetry, guitars, autoharp, bagpipes and a variety of percussion. We were in the Music Room, which is a lovely venue.
I'm still keeping my TV Theme of the Week going, mostly by commemorating someone in show business who has died recently - this week I sang Up on the Roof in honour of Kenny Lynch, who was on TV a lot in the 60s and 70s, singing and doing comedy.
There was a new chap who sang a song in Geordie dialect, while being given a critical stare by Brian, who actually grew up in Wallsend - but he said he'd be back with his guitar. There were old favourites like the Asteroid Song from Bob's new album (he brought along a stuffed brontosaurus for it, one of his Christmas presents), and the ultimate Everyone-Join-In song, House of the Rising Sun, as well as Nigel singing Delia and Les Coveney's Bones of Tom Paine. There were new songs, too - I don't think we've ever had Dark Side of the Moon before.
There was also a couple who are about to get married and go off on a honeymoon cruise - she sang a heartbreaking song about horses that were killed at the end of the First World War because they were going to be abandoned while the men were shipped home. He sang less traumatic traditional songs including the Creole girl from Pontchartrain.
The chips at 9pm were very good, as usual, though I had to make do with the Shipyard beer, since the two cask ales (they serve Butty Bach and Wye Valley from the Wye Valley Brewery) had run out.
I'm looking forward to a lot more good music and good company in the New Year.