Today, we meet Clare and Linda and drive to Hay-on-Wye in Wales to visit the Hay Festival. This book festival in the small town with so many book stores is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year! We meet at Clare’s who now lives very close to Aldershot. Linda has just arrived as well.

It’s taking us three hours to get to Hay. We cross the bridge near bristol and turn off to the countryside with its many beautiful hills, sheeps and nice roads. It’s such a beautiful place!

We arrive in Hay around half past twelve and take in the nice weather and the great atmosphere. There are festive tents everywhere, a lot of lawns to sit on, a huge food tent with lots of food stalls – and everything is interconnected by wide walkways.

At the BBC tent, I fight a Dalek with my sonic selfie stick. 😉

We walk around for a bit and have something to eat then. In between all the food stalls, we discover one with scotch eggs. I’ve only tried one during our last holidays and quite like them! This one has beetroot in it, hence the red colour.

We then go to the Letters Live event. Many celebrities read letters that have been collected for the Letters of Note books, for example an exchange of letters between George Orwell and a publisher, or from Napoleon to Josephine. Loo Brealey (Molly from “Sherlock”) is reading, too! It’s great how the readers not only read the letter aloud, but really perform it.

After that we spend a little while browsing in the big book shop tent…

… before walking to the little town. Here we catch the last sunrays in a beautiful beer garden. We also explore the town with its little alleys and quirky book shops.

Before driving back, we eat dinner in the food tent (polish Biogs stew in a bread bowl).