A day out in Hay-on-Wye

 We had to go to Brecon this week to get some more Earthborn clay paint for the interior walls here (it allows the walls to breath).  As we had to go that far, and as I had been confined to barracks for so long with this wretched chest infection, we decided to carry on to Hay-on-Wye.  This will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog . . . it is always our default setting for a day out, and it is SUCH a lovely town to visit, books apart.

It was just a quiet stroll around the town, visiting our favourite shops.  We started off at the Sandwich Cellar in Backfold, with my husband's favourite brunch of a bacon roll - proper bacon, thick stuff, not that awful pumped-full-of-water rubbish.  This is where we always start our day off in Hay and can recommend the food and the ambience.

Our stroll was leisurely, and involved my sitting down wherever possible as my legs are still aching from side-effects of the Steroids.  I'm alright as long as I don't sit/stand/walk for too long at a stretch.  Bending murdered my knees though and wouldn't you know, looking at books involves a lot of bending!

My husband found a great book on the Isle of Man.  His g.grandfather came over to the mainland in Victorian times but the Manx roots go back forever, so he's always on the look-out to add to his Manx book collection.  This one has lots of folklore in.

As it happens, I struck EXTEMELY lucky for the books this time.  Several of them had obviously been just waiting for my hand to come along and take them off the shelf. . .  Needless to say, Edward Thomas is still an important interest to me, both the man and his works.  I was fortunate enough to find a book in each category.  I had been looking for Edward Thomas' publications, and found his biography of Richard Jefferies in Booths.  A little the worse for wear, with its foxing, but I was happy with it.

This biography about him came from the Poetry bookshop, which I always look in too.  I am looking forward to settling down with that later on.

THEN, also in Booths, and below the Richard Jefferies biography, was THIS gem.  I have been looking for this for YEARS and wanted it SO much, but it was such a price on Abebooks , Amazon etc (£30 - £40 cheapest) I couldn't afford it.  This copy was just £5 and I snatched it up SO quickly, you wouldn't believe.  Both those books must have been simply keeping company, waiting for me to come along.


 

To anyone who didn't grow up reading Monica Edwards' wonderful childrens' books, it might be hard to fathom the attraction of this one, but I always felt that somewhere like Punchbowl Farm was where I belonged, and it actually imprinted me into the sort of house I always wanted . . . which is why I ended up in a falling-down Welsh farmhouse all those years ago. Punchbowl Farm has beams, inglenooks and character - just like this house.  I am delighted to find that some of her animal characters in the books were truly her animals in real-life and I am about to sit down and read this book from cover to cover.

Finally, I chose these two food/cookery books.  The first, because I intend to lose 2 stone in weight.  There, I've written it down, so there's no getting away with it.  I am too heavy and it is doing my asthma no good, nor anything else for that matter.  There are some gorgeous recipes in it and I will try and share them on here as I make them.  I am going to aim at a largely vegetarian diet in future, as that has been proven to help asthmatics.  I am really enjoying trying out new recipes and enjoying cooking again (my menfolk like plain and boring food which is, let's face it, plain, boring and repetitive to cook!)

The Immunity Boosters book is an essential too, as I want to boost my immune system (much-weakened at present) to fight any infections in future.  For £2 it seemed like a good investment to me.

So far today we had to go into Llandeilo as my husband had an optician's appointment, and I found a big vegetarian cookery book in one of the charity shops, and two long skirts which I hope will fit me.  I am going to pick more gooseberries and the blackcurrants, so I have soft fruit in the freezer for puddings and to mix in with yoghurt.  Then I am going to read about yoghurt-making again and get the ingredients when we shop on Saturday.  I have gotten too far away from my chosen pathway in recent years, and it is time to get back on the straight and narrow again - self-reliant and as home-made as possible.