We had a terrific day at Hay yesterday, despite overcast skies. We arrived and I enjoyed a Fair Trade coffee and an enormous Danish pastry to set me up for the morning. We had tickets for the
CADW talk by
John Davies (A History of Wales), and for
Richard Perceval Graves at the
Housman Society event. Sadly for the organisers, there were not as many festival-goers as usual. Perhaps it was the rain or perhaps the recession.
While I was browsing in the
Poetry Bookshop, I heard that it had featured in a
Telegraph article (20 April 2010) on the best independent bookshops in Britain - which you can read
here. I hope the
Guardian podcast will be posted soon...
It is always fun to wander round the site. We took a box of books to the the
Oxfam stall, and were given a couple of festival event tickets as a 'thank you'. The festival bookshop has book signings and an amazing range of books on subjects ranging from the nature of clouds to the objects in the British Museum.
We had a picnic lunch between events, and then set off on the shuttle bus to visit the bookshops in town. The Poetry Bookshop is always my first port of call. On this occasion there was great excitement as Guardian reporters were in the process of making a podcast. We have just watched
Bright Star (a compelling and unusual film with amazing photography), and was delighted to buy a book on Keats and his circle.
So why would I recommend a visit to the Hay Festival? Well, for a start, it would be good to see people sitting in these empty chairs (photo below)!
Seriously, it makes a great day out for everyone and is a good place to meet up with friends. There is no admission to the site, though there is a charge for the car parks. Our car park fee gave us shuttle bus tickets, so once we had parked, we could leave the car all day and explore the festival and the shops in town with ease. The festival organisers take fair trade, recycling and
green issues pretty seriously.
