Lively Ledbury

Where better to be on a beautiful summer Saturday than Ledbury, with its floral displays, cobbled lanes and interesting shops, to say nothing of its tempting tea-gardens, the ideal place to sit and while away an hour over your book or the papers. And yesterday it was especially alive for the second weekend of the annual Poetry Festival - throngs of people, "poets for hire" on street corners, "The Emergency Poet" (billed as "the world's first and only poetic first aid service") and poems pinned to walls and posted in windows all around the town.

Church Lane, Ledbury

I had gone particularly for "The Shadow Of His Hand", a session chaired by Paul Henry with the Welsh poets Owen Sheers, Stephen Knight and Oliver Reynolds talking about the influence of Dylan Thomas on their work. It proved a fascinating discussion. Later in the afternoon Bernard O'Donahue was speaking on the life and work of Seamus Heaney - also an event not to be missed and indeed very well attended. Between times I was fortunate to get a returned ticket for a writing workshop with the young poet Joey Connolly; it had been a sell-out but one participant's husband was unwell and unable to come with her. Should he be reading this - I do hope you are now recovering but thank you for facilitating a very interesting afternoon!