Oh my, I’m still knackered after yesterday. We all got up early so we could go to Hay-On-Wye for a book hunt! Thing is, we had to go through Brecon and wouldn’t you know it, it was the second day of the Brecon jaz festival. And guess who hates jazz? (Hint: me!) I hate being in Brecon during the festival as most folks seem to take it as nothing more than an excuse to be able to get roaring drunk in the street, walk around with plastic pints and be generally offensive. While there are children around as well. The main street is closed off to traffic as there are lots of food stalls and other stalls, as well as the places where (ugh) jazz is being played. Mind you, I did spot Cleo Laine in a car going to the Brecon theatre as we were walking along there to the canal.
Anyway, we wandered along the canal a bit and sat and chatted and generally goofed. We played the hat game, which made us giggle like loons. The hat game consists of spotting hats and giving them marks out of 10. Extra points are allocated to blatantly Depp hats or Pratchett hats. We tended to see more Depp-esque hats. Though there was one man we awarded the elusive 10 to as he was wearing a black beret affair, worn jauntily on the back of his head rather than on the top. We debated as to whether he was using hatpins, had especially bushy hair on the back of his head or, my idea, had very strong willpower to keep his hat on!
We got to Hay-on-Wye around lunchtime and headed to the cinema bookshop first. (It was a cinema originally and was converted into a giant bookshop on two floors.) I found an old copy of “Tales of Genji”, which was the reason I wanted to go in the first place! So that was me happy! I hope you’re sitting down because, I have to announce that DH actually bought two books! Yes, two! I nearly fainted! He loves books, but he has a more — I hesitate to say narrow — a decided idea of what he wants to read. But this time he bought an Alex Rider book (Anthony Horowitz, I should say, is the author. We both love his Alex Rider kid-agent books and read most of them before “Stormrbreaker” came out as a movie.) DD bought lots of animal behaviour and ecology books. 15 in all in fact. I bought four books from a new/remaindered shop which sold books for £1 each! I got “Double Indemnity”, a book of short stories of Inspector Rebus, Christina Rossetti poems, and a novel about India. I also got a book from 1891 of the poems of Dante Gabrielle Rossetti from Richard Booth’s shop and “The Empire Book for Girls” from 1910, from Rose’s children’s bookshop. Oh, and a Victorian photograph. I love Victorian photos.
A lot of the shops in Hay have dogs so we had to pet them all. I chatted to a nice old man in a motorised wheelchair who had a whippet with him. (My grandfather used to keep racing whippets.) And the sweetest little puppy took a fancy to my shoes and wanted to sit on them! Most people who go to Hay are combining camping/caravaning/walking holidays with a book hunt so there were lots of dogs around, enjoying themselves hugely and some puppies who had worn themselves out with Fun.
Then back to Brecon for a 50 minute wait for the bus back to Merthyr. And lots more drunks who were even drunker by this time. The bus was packed, but the driver couldn’t turn anyone away as it was the last bus. I got into conversation with two amiable drunken men who were standing beside me. One of them said I’m a bonny girl, which made me laugh! Yeees, only a drunk would say that. (And as my DH remembered, he was slightly inebriated when he met me! LOL!!) DD gave her seat to a pregnant woman and her husband said he’d buy Sprog a pint if he saw her in a pub! (Our lass doesn’t like alcohol much, though she did confess to having once drunk a whole pint of vodka and having felt no ill effects whatsoever. Lucky tike!)
We were famished by the time we got home but too tired to cook. So DH went to the chip shop and got some chips while Sprog and I made ham sarnies and tea. And then we all had baths and were tucked up in bed (in DD’s case, in her tent) by 10 o’clock, we were so worn out!
So, a lovely day and it was not too hot either, which was a bonus. It’s likely to be the last time we go to Hay unless DD or DH learn to drive. I’ll miss it, but we won’t be too badly of for bookshops. Apart from Ottackers and a Waterstones by the arts centre, there are five secondhand bookshops in Aberyswyth. And more in Cardigan and other places. Also DH has decided he wants to try selling some old books on line, as “Glan Dwr Books”. That will be fun! We have enough books to stock a good sized bookshop, even with the 10 boxes we gave away to the St David’s Hospice.
