Thursday 24th May
First day at Hay
This is my first brief update from Wales’ beautiful book town. I arrived at the camp site late this afternoon and booked into my Caboose ‘hotel’ room (more a glorified horse box, but it has electricity and a shower, so I’m quite satisfied), before heading over to the main Festival site to collect my official Friends’ ID card.
The town is relatively quiet at present, which rather surprised me, but I have been assured by locals that it’s ‘the calm before the storm’. Today was the first schools’ day, and somewhere in the region of 6,000 primary school children had been bussed in from across the country – consequently, the tents were chock-full of excitable youngsters.
I popped in to the official Hay Festival Book Shop where I came across Kate Pankhurst signing copies of her new children’s book, Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World; stopped off at the Friends’ Café for an immense, froth-topped cappuccino; had a delicious meal at The Swan at Hay; then spent a pleasant hour strolling around the town – after which, it was time to return to the camp site for a refreshing cuppa and to watch the sun go down.
See the results for Vote 100 Books >>
