Somewhere in the midst of quite a busy week last week I headed down to Cardiff to stay briefly with my son Dylan (and Cat briefly). We then spent much of the day in Hay-on-Wye beginning at the showground where the thirtieth Hay Festival was in full swing and moving on to the town famous for its second hand bookshops.
I've only been to Hay once or twice before and as before I found that although one starts off quite excited that slowly wears off and at the end you are glad to be gone. The reasons for the frustration is the narrowing down pretty much just to books, the sheer volume of these and, above all, the almost non-existence of a bargain. All the books are carefully priced so much so that even the bargain books at £1 yield nothing you might actually want. This leaves a bad taste in the mouth in that part of the frisson of secondhand books is the thought of a bargain. I you were looking for a long lost title I can imagine the experience being rewarding but for bargain hunters l like myself ...,
Having said that, it was a lovely sunny day and it was good to be with Dylan. We enjoyed chips at lunch time and a nice Shepherd's ice cream, I was a bit tired driving back but happy.
