Hay Festival 2006

Jayne:

Hay is my annual refuge. My personal Christmas. I leave behind the working world of IT, housed in a box of glass and steel, where daylight is a distant view. I leave behind the daily concerns of family life - dishes, messy bedrooms, spelling homework, mislaid shoes, odd socks and playstation squabbles. For a few glorious days, I am only Me - A Writer, A Reader - craving stories and anecdotes, laughter and insights.

This year was different. This year, I took my eight-year-old daughter along too.

I was still A Writer, still A Reader - but also still A Mother. At the campsite where we spent our first night, I worried about whether Hannah would notice that the couple in the next door tent had come to Hay for only one thing. And they did that thing again, and again, and again. If that wasn't enough, Hannah's new flip-flops caused blisters, so there was a trip to the pharmacy. She wanted ice cream every five minutes. She got fed up standing in queues for book signings.

But, you know, it didn't diminish the magic for me. In fact, it made me appreciate Hay in a whole new way. I had an excuse to nose around shops selling dolls houses. I could share the thrill she felt at meeting Francesca Simon and at watching Lemony Snicket gothically court nervous giggles that turned to wholehearted laughter. We sang 'Nelly the Elephant' together at the top of our voices with the family audience for Louis de Bernieres Antonius Players.

I still managed to attend a few events on my own - Monty Don, Liz Smith with Sandi Toskvig, Alan Alda, Douglas Coupland - when I could forget I was a Parent. And I'll never forget the view from the farmhouse where we stayed for most of the long weekend. I'm glad Hannah came, and she knows now why Mummy loves Hay so much.

Heather:

I went to Hay focussed, hoping to discover one or two inexpensive but meaty texts about ancient Sumer to help with research for Leaving the Garden of Eden. A fruitless search (lame joke intended), and if I could have the time again I'd have -

1. Read For Charity - I should have spent more time lounging in their tent, because there cannot be a more enjoyable way to support good causes.

2. Gone to the Circus - every year an odd parade of jugglers, clowns, stilt walkers and gypsies on horseback march through Hay inviting passers by to relive their childhood. This came through the Blue Boar café (minus the horses) while we were having lunch, and I thought then.... Note to self: act more on impulse.

3. Done the Fringe - Imagine, the little book festival that was Hay ten years ago has become an event so popular it needs fringe performers. I should have looked for the offbeat; I should have gone to the Hay Writers' Group event, which happens every year, and mingled with kindred spirits.

But it's not all regrets. I'd still have gone to see Peter Lord giving sneak previews of the next Aardman film 'Flushed Away'. Filmmakers chop and change a story idea so fearlessly; I think it's good for me to be reminded of that.

And speaking of films, I found a fantastic book entitled 'Taking the Red Pill', a collection of essays about the scientific, philosophic and religious concepts dealt with in The Matrix Trilogy, my all-time favourite movies.

And with the help of a certain person, I have experienced Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry, and will forever remember this refrain: "One bottom, two bottoms, three bottoms, four! Five bottoms, six bottoms, seven bottoms, more!"

Don't know how I'll top that next year.

Many thanks to Dave and Helen Morris, who joined us at Hay, for taking so many wonderful pictures, including this view from Llangain farmhouse.