Hay Castle Renovations

What a lot of scaffolding! This will be what Hay Castle looks like for the next few months.

Tai Chi Classes

The summer holidays are over, and Tai Chi classes have started again at the Masonic Hall. I go to the Friday sessions, from 5.30 - 6.30pm and there is another class on Tuesdays from 6pm to 7pm.
Because there were only a few of us at the first session, Peter told us a bit about the history of the Chen style of Tai Chi that he teaches.
The main thing that Peter emphasises is to do the exercises regularly, for the best health benefits - I could feel the difference after a summer without the regular classes, even though I'd been trying to practice on my own.
What we're working up to is the form, a sequence of movements - on Fridays we practice the 19 form, which was cut down from the original Laojia form of 74 movements to make it easier to teach, and it's cut down again to individual exercises called silk reeling. You need to move around a bit to do the form, which involves quite a bit of stepping and turning, but the exercises can be done in quite a small space, and don't need any special equipment. For yoga you at least need a mat, but tai chi doesn't even need that!
And it's not just for health and to improve the posture - it's also a martial art. Even the 19 form that we do has a couple of punches thrown into the mix.

h.Art Week

There are quite a few exhibitions on around Hay this week as part of h.Art Week. Some of them are going on for longer than the week, of course.
They include the Eugene Fisk retrospective at Brook Street Pottery, upstairs. The exhibition includes sketch books, and some of Eugene's books are on sale, including Only Connect, the book he created from his sketches of refugees at Open Days organised by Hay, Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees.
On Friday, I went to the opening night of Sarah Putt's exhibition at the Old Electric Shop. There are some very good portraits there, as well as embroideries and still lives, and sculptures - her work can also be seen in various shop windows around town, for instance her Map Man at the map shop on Castle Street. It was a very good launch party, with lots of local support and some interesting nibbles coming round on trays.
Also in Hay for h.Art is the Carol Peace exhibition at The Table, with a flamboyant sculpture of a figure waving a huge scarf in the window, with drawings and paintings, and larger sculptures in the secret garden [Edited to add] The secret garden is down Brook Street, past the Bookshop Cinema. It's a gorgeous garden, and refreshments are also available.
The Drawing Room has Dry Brush, Wet Brush, with the artist's inspiration taken from Zen scrolls and poetry.
Just up Cusop Dingle, Tim Rawlings is exhibiting his bronze sculptures at the Old Stables, and demonstrating techniques such as lost wax casting and patination.
And at The River Café in Glasbury Polly James is exhibiting her charcoal and pencil drawings of wildlife.
Other studios and exhibitions are open all over Herefordshire, with groups of exhibitions in Hereford, Kington, Leominster, Ledbury and Ross-on-Wye, as well as scattered exhibitions around the countryside.

Change of Venue for Stitch and Bitch

The new management of Kilverts have said that they don't want to use their little back room for meetings any more, and they want to expand their restaurant trade, so there was no room there for Stitch and Bitch to meet any more.
So on Thursday night (SnB meets on the first Thursday of every month, from 6pm to 8pm), we were back in the Swan. The Swan is now under different management from when we were there before, and they welcomed us into the room by the front door which is used for meetings. There was a good turn out, too; eleven of us were there, with a variety of projects on the go including knitting, crochet, sewing a collage picture and embellishing a piece of batik cloth with a picture of a figure on it.
I tried the Swan Gold bitter from the bar, from the Swan brewery, which was very nice. They also serve Butty Bach. The dining tables have been taken out of the front bar, and replaced with comfy seats and sofas, and I'm sure they've put new carpets down since I was last there.
I think we'll be making that our regular venue in the future.

Another group moving to the Swan is the Science Club. They bring in a lecturer about once a month to talk about scientific topics in terms a layperson can understand, and their next meeting is on Tuesday 25th September, at 7pm. I think the topic is nuclear power.

Botany and other Stories in the Buttermarket

Here's an update on the festivities which are being organised alongside the Green exhibition at Hazy Days. The exhibition starts on 12th September, and runs until the 3rd November, but tomorrow, Saturday, things are happening in the Buttermarket from 11am to 3pm.
The weather forecast isn't brilliant, so the proposed picnic by the bridge has been cancelled. However, the Colossal Critter will be walking around the town, and at about 1pm it will lead the way to a musical and botanical promenade by the river from the Buttermarket.
The Buttermarket will have stalls, with nothing to sell, but things to win. There will be puppets, plants from Primrose Farm, flowers, a gardening display, natural dyes by Annie Frasier, artistic activities, and traditional and Welsh songs from Elspeth-miri Funnell and Catherine Hughes. All that, and Mister Mint!

Kilvert's Opening and Three Tuns Wedding

Kilvert's is now under new management, and they celebrated by having a big party in the garden. I went along early on, just for a while. There was a band setting up, which I was told later was pretty good, mainly doing covers of well known songs, and they were followed by a young band who my informant thought was really good.
Unhappily, there have been a fair few complaints about the late night noise on the Community Facebook page - especially as the opening party was followed, the next night, by someone's 21st birthday bash.

Meanwhile, over at the Three Tuns, there will be no food on Sunday 9th September, because the couple there are getting married!

Dial-a-Ride Coffee Morning

I went up to Cusop Village Hall for the Dial-a-Ride Coffee Morning and jumble sale on Saturday morning - and came away with a few good bargains - and a nice cup of tea included in the entrance price.

I also picked up a leaflet about the new "Bank Bus" which Dial-a-Ride will be running for members. This has been funded up until March next year by the Rotary Club, for all the people who need to use a bank when there is no longer one left in Hay.
It will go once a month (I believe the first one was already fully booked), and the next one is on Friday 28th September, followed by Friday 26th October, 7th December, 25th January, 22nd February and 29th March. Bookings are only being taken one month in advance.