More Crime Fiction

 

Addymans has expanded their crime fiction into the next shop, now called Christie & Doyle.

Meal at Red Indigo

 The Cinema Bookshop did well over the Festival, so last night was a celebration meal to thank the staff for all their hard work.

We went to Red Indigo last year, and decided to go back this year, to sit on the balcony at the back in the evening sun, which was very pleasant.

I had the chat for starters, followed by a jalfryzi, with coriander naan bread, and the portion was too big for me to finish.  Our new part timer took a doggie bag home.  One person ordered the sizzling tandoori, to comments of: "Do you think that's hot enough?" 

Good service (thanks, Eklim!), good food, and pleasant conversation - a very good evening all round. 

Saturday Market Plant Stall

 The Saturday Market happens once a month across the summer months.  There are high quality crafts, organic veg, interesting food - and this time there was a plant stall.  I didn't take much notice of the other side of the stall, which was herbal remedies of some sort - I zeroed in on the plants.  After all, I have a big flowerbed to fill now, and the plants on offer were exactly what I was looking for.  I asked them for a box to carry my purchases away, and I filled it - perennial sweet peas, feverfew, thyme, and peppermint.  The peppermint has gone in a box next to the kitchen door - I don't want it to take over the garden!

I got them home and planted out in nice time before the heavens opened, which signalled the end of the market day!  It was great that it had held off until 2pm, though. 

Walking Holidays

 I went into Hereford on Friday, and also waiting for the bus was a lady who I'd seen on Wednesday evening at Baskerville Hall, in the audience for the acoustic music session.  Turns out that she's an Italian-American lady on a walking holiday, and the two younger ladies she was sitting with are also on a walking holiday - they're doing Land's End to John O'Groats, going around 18 miles a day, while she's heading south at a more leisurely 7 or 8 miles a day.  The ladies going north have a support vehicle - one of their husbands is driving a camper van so they have somewhere to stay every night.

The Italian-American woman was worried about what President Trump is doing, especially with ICE rounding up immigrants, but she said that, if the worst came to the worst, she still had family in Italy, so it wouldn't be so bad to leave the US. 

Affordable Housing

 As a follow up to yesterday's post, I saw in the Brecon and Radnor Express that there is a new plan to build affordable housing on the site where the old community centre was knocked down.

Powys County Council originally owned the site, which they sold to Wales and West Housing - who were going to redevelop it into affordable housing.  However it seems that Wales and West no longer own the site.  The new owners are Pegasus Developments and Hesyn housing association, and they also want to build affordable housing there.  Just to clarify - this is the site behind Garibaldi Terrace, near the bottom of Oxford Road on the bend.  

A consultation is underway, before planning permission is applied for, by the planning agents LRM.  They say this will include details on access, landscaping, drainage and so on.  There will also be an opportunity to comment when the National Parks Authority receive the planning application.

The consultation ends on June 20th, so there's still time to make comments.  The website is:

https://lrm-planning.com/consultation/former-community-centre-off-oxford-road-hay-on-wye/

 

Protests for Palestine

 

There was a little band of people protesting against the genocide in Gaza over Hay Festival, on the Festival site and also in town, around the Castle steps.

They were handing out leaflets recommending that people boycott Israeli produce such as avocados and citrus fruits, and also the companies which are supporting Israel - including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Costa Coffee, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Macdonalds, Nestle, Walkers crisps, Starbucks, various perfume companies like Estee Lauder, Chanel and Clinique, and various entertainment companies like Disney, Paramount and Fox.  Another company that supports Israel is Caterpillar, who supply armour plated bulldozers to the Israelis, who use them to demolish Palestinian homes and olive groves.

I also noticed this sign, taped to a signboard by the back gates of Hay Castle.  AirB&B is a problem in Hay, as I found when I was trying to move a couple of years ago.  I can see that each individual landlord is making a choice that makes sense for them financially, but when too many people do the same thing at the same time it becomes a problem for the wider society - in this case taking properties out of the pool of long term letting for local people.  

I hadn't realised that the AirB&B company had links to Israel (clicking on the picture should make it big enough to read).

Re-connected to the Hive Consciousness

 In other words, the engineer from BT came round this morning and connected my internet!

So now I can do all the things that my phone didn't have enough signal for during the Festival.

Also, I'm making much better headway with the utility companies now that I know that the almshouses have their very own postcode, different to the rest of Church Street!  Suddenly, I do exist, after all!

In other news there was a small, relaxed gathering at Baskerville Hall last night, as I went over for the first acoustic music evening I've been able to get to for a while.