Hay on Wye Festival
I have been doing a bit of unicorn snooping at the Hay-on-Wye book festival, which takes place at the historic town of Hay on the Welsh border every year during the spring bank holiday week. A few days beforehand, an entire tented village magically appears on a (often muddy) field a short walk from the real town. In these grand white tents, famous writers talk about their books, give readings and sign them, while the rest of us laze around in the sun reading and drinking coffee. Here is a picture of a naked lady showing how it is done:
No, she’s not real… she’s just one of the lovely statues decorating the site! But if you saw a unicorn it might well have been me, because the sun was making my horn glitter so much I had a hard time staying invisible.
The real town is famous for its second hand bookshops, which meant there were plenty of BOOKS around. My author kept having to be dragged away from them:
This is the honesty bookshop in the castle grounds... if you take a book, you have to put your money in the box, or the ghostly border guards will chop off your hand for stealing (don't worry, I made Katherine put that book back!)
And here is a sign the Muse likes:
THESE BOOKS ARE £1-95 EACH - LESS THAN THE PRICE OF AN AVERAGE BIRTHDAY CARD.
Did you go to the Hay Festival this year? If so, which authors did you see?
(Before you ask, yes, Katherine did an event at Hay-on-Wye too, but you’d have needed a time machine to see her because it was eight years ago... long before this blog existed or anyone had even dreamt of the world wide web. However did we all manage?)
No, she’s not real… she’s just one of the lovely statues decorating the site! But if you saw a unicorn it might well have been me, because the sun was making my horn glitter so much I had a hard time staying invisible.
The real town is famous for its second hand bookshops, which meant there were plenty of BOOKS around. My author kept having to be dragged away from them:
This is the honesty bookshop in the castle grounds... if you take a book, you have to put your money in the box, or the ghostly border guards will chop off your hand for stealing (don't worry, I made Katherine put that book back!)And here is a sign the Muse likes:
THESE BOOKS ARE £1-95 EACH - LESS THAN THE PRICE OF AN AVERAGE BIRTHDAY CARD.Did you go to the Hay Festival this year? If so, which authors did you see?
(Before you ask, yes, Katherine did an event at Hay-on-Wye too, but you’d have needed a time machine to see her because it was eight years ago... long before this blog existed or anyone had even dreamt of the world wide web. However did we all manage?)