If you're lucky enough to live within traveling distance of Hay-on-Wye, on the Welsh border, you should be ashamed of yourself if you don't go to the Hay Festival. Since it's conception in 1988 and now known as the Guardian Hay Festival, this literary event runs for 10 days at the end of May and always features an eclectic mix of guests and performances.
Every year the festival seems to grow a little- it was originally held in various locations around the town but had to move to a location just outside of town due to its size. There is now a children's festival that runs alongside the main festival and it also has 'sister' festivals in Spain and Columbia. This year there are new festivals opening in Nairobi and Beirut.
In case you have never heard of Hay-on-Wye, it's a small, pretty town with a disproportionate number of bookshops. Attracting visitors from all over the world, the prices of everything from real estate to a pint in one of the many pubs have soared over the years and last time we were there we accidentally paid £9 for a Ploughman's Lunch. If you have never heard of a Ploughman's Lunch, it's a typical British pub lunch and is really a plate with cheese, bread pickle and an apple on it. Tasty but not for £9 even if it did contain the world's biggest slice of Stilton on it! Anyway, back to my point......Hay is a lovely place to visit and if you like browsing in second-hand books stores it's heaven. The bookshops are all over. There's books in the old castle on the hill, books in the old cinema and books...well, everywhere.
The Hay Festival runs from May 21st to May 31st this year and you can read more about it at their website and about Hay itself here.
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