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Last day in Hay
Mar. 18th, 2010 04:35 pmAnd tomorrow, we're off to Hereford (pronounced Her-er-ferd, not Her-ferd, as I was saying on Monday.).
The longer we stayed here, the better it got, so I'm very glad we decided to go for the 3 day option. Jana was watching our laundry this morning while I went off to the Post Office to mail a bunch of my new books home. I stopped by the health food store on the way back and remembered that one of the local bookbinders worked there part-time. I introduced myself (and Jana by extension) and got an invite to drop by the shop this afternoon. We just returned from an hour of chatting about changes in the field, difficulties in finding good historical marbled paper, the dearth of long-term training programs and obscure things one can do with goatskin. :-)
Apart from that, Shepherd's really is serving sheep's milk ice cream (and goat cheese paninis), which is both delicious and wonderful, seeing as I've been coasting on a Lactaid variation for several days now so it's good to have something to eat that I won't pay for later. This far, the U.K. seems to agree with me - I've had many fewer headaches than usual.
We've been meeting people at the B&B and around town; in Bath, everyone staying at the same place was American, here they're all Brits except us. This morning, it was a nice couple on a short walking tour and a man on a 4-day long walking and camping trip through the nearby mountains. We've also been meeting the pub and antique shop dogs, who are all adorable and friendly, and their owners who are very pleased that we've been admiring their dogs. We also discovered the sf/f/h section of Addyman's. Jana took a cheesy photo of me posing with the collective cardboard images of Kirk, Picard, Gollum and Gandalf while clutching my new used copy of Feersum Injinn. I'll be posting these when I'm on the regular computer as the Netbook, while excellent in other respects, isn't quite up to photos. From there it was on to Richard Booth's bookshop, which is large, well-stocked and somewhat under construction. I acquired a slightly battered Folio Society copy of Cold Comfort Farm, among other things, and have once more exceeded the size of my baggage despite mailing off 3 large envelopes of books this morning. Sigh.
On the whole, I think if I had a snowball's chance in Hell of ever retiring, Hay-on-Wye is the sort of place I'd like to do it. We were wondering why everyone seemed vaguely familiar with Minnesota until we learned that the local theater is doing several monthly film festivals, including one of the Coen Bros. I'm kind of glad we got here before they show Fargo, since the accent expections tend to change once they see that one.
Lovely, lovely trip so far and looking forward to new adventures.
The longer we stayed here, the better it got, so I'm very glad we decided to go for the 3 day option. Jana was watching our laundry this morning while I went off to the Post Office to mail a bunch of my new books home. I stopped by the health food store on the way back and remembered that one of the local bookbinders worked there part-time. I introduced myself (and Jana by extension) and got an invite to drop by the shop this afternoon. We just returned from an hour of chatting about changes in the field, difficulties in finding good historical marbled paper, the dearth of long-term training programs and obscure things one can do with goatskin. :-)
Apart from that, Shepherd's really is serving sheep's milk ice cream (and goat cheese paninis), which is both delicious and wonderful, seeing as I've been coasting on a Lactaid variation for several days now so it's good to have something to eat that I won't pay for later. This far, the U.K. seems to agree with me - I've had many fewer headaches than usual.
We've been meeting people at the B&B and around town; in Bath, everyone staying at the same place was American, here they're all Brits except us. This morning, it was a nice couple on a short walking tour and a man on a 4-day long walking and camping trip through the nearby mountains. We've also been meeting the pub and antique shop dogs, who are all adorable and friendly, and their owners who are very pleased that we've been admiring their dogs. We also discovered the sf/f/h section of Addyman's. Jana took a cheesy photo of me posing with the collective cardboard images of Kirk, Picard, Gollum and Gandalf while clutching my new used copy of Feersum Injinn. I'll be posting these when I'm on the regular computer as the Netbook, while excellent in other respects, isn't quite up to photos. From there it was on to Richard Booth's bookshop, which is large, well-stocked and somewhat under construction. I acquired a slightly battered Folio Society copy of Cold Comfort Farm, among other things, and have once more exceeded the size of my baggage despite mailing off 3 large envelopes of books this morning. Sigh.
On the whole, I think if I had a snowball's chance in Hell of ever retiring, Hay-on-Wye is the sort of place I'd like to do it. We were wondering why everyone seemed vaguely familiar with Minnesota until we learned that the local theater is doing several monthly film festivals, including one of the Coen Bros. I'm kind of glad we got here before they show Fargo, since the accent expections tend to change once they see that one.
Lovely, lovely trip so far and looking forward to new adventures.