Recharging my batteries in Hay....

Well it may not be everyone's idea of a relaxing few days off but it is mine. From Sunday to Wednesday I was "detoxing" at the Hay on Wye Festival. I say detoxing because that is what it feels like: you're surrounded by authors, actors, famous people who are just sitting all around on deck chairs, in the cafes and bars just like you are. Then there's all the talks, which are mostly fairly cheap (between £4 and £8) and sometimes free; you learn that some authors may be great on paper but boring to listen to (Anthony Beevor, Helen Dunmore for example) and that others are just a delight to both read and listen to like Simon Armitage and Andrea Levy. Sometimes you realise that you are becoming part of that days news when you hear, as I did, Sir Ian Blair (ex-Commissionaire of the Met) giving his first hand opinion of the shooting of the innocent Brazilian man, which partly led to his own sacking by Boris Johnson. And then there's the town of Hay itself, with it's thirty odd bookshops (one of them a converted cinema housing over 200,000 titles!) then there's the street food: home cooked curry, crepes, smoothies from stalls in and around the Castle; the music, the comedy, the weird and wonderful people milling around the narrow streets. You look up and you see the wonderfully picturesque scenery all around you as the Brecon Beacons beckon you to walk up them, to breath all that lovely fresh Welsh air. My first visit to Hay gave the inspiration to open my bookshop in Tonbridge so every year that I can I try to make it along there for a few days of recharging and detoxing. A kind of working holiday but actually, for me, more enjoyable than most normal breaks....