Hay in the Sunshine

Hay on Wye, lunchtime, Thursday

A sunny, in fact rather too hot, day (Madrid is much drier, so in fact more bearable) has driven me, perspiring, into the Tourist Office where they have two fine computers which for 75p per 15 minutes, i.e. £3 an hour, you can be on the Internet to your heart's content. And I've missed 't Internet, I must say.

Not going to spend too much of my time here writing, but here is something I might expand on later: a lot of things do not work very well. At Chester yesterday almost all the trains were running late, and my train to Hereford left at 1320, 50 minutes late, due to there not being any crew there at 12.30, and while there was a brief apology, most of the announcements, as they seem to be everywhere, were about not smoking, even though while we awaited the missing crew, practically everybody got off the train and lit up. Just why is it that TV licences and not smoking are the most effectively policed aspects of British law, while drug dealing, no-go areas and burglary continue to be rife? My cheery landlady here in Hay told me as she presented me with my excellent cooked breakfast that the health and safety people have now ruled that the WI can no longer make cakes for old people and hospital patients as there would be no guarantee that their kitchens would match their exacting safety standards. What next?

More when I can, though it might be Madrid during Saturday night before I get some real computer time.