HAY HAS GONE COMPLETELY FUNGAL

Mushroom cocktails, psychedelic folklore and one deeply unserious line dance

This weekend Hay-on-Wye becomes Fungi Town, a three-day takeover devoted to the weird, beautiful and surprisingly important world of mushrooms, toadstools, lichens, moulds and yeasts.

And they've really committed.

You can learn lino printing using inks made from mushrooms, bring your compost along to be examined under a microscope, browse a fungal emporium at Hay Castle or hear an RHS plant pathologist explain what fungi are actually doing underneath your garden.

There is a session separating the evidence from the hype around medicinal mushrooms, which frankly feels overdue given the number of powders currently being added to millennial coffees.

Then things get wonderfully much stranger.

Professor Andy Letcher is giving A Cultural History of the Magic Mushrooms of Britain, including questions around psychedelic folklore, Stonehenge and whether Father Christmas really has anything to do with fly agaric mushrooms.

There are mushroom films followed by mushroom stroganoff. There are mushroom cocktails.

And on Saturday night The Globe hosts PuffBall, with local DJ and permaculture farmer Redwood playing underground electronic music, breaks, Afro house and techno followed by what organisers describe as their "world famous mushroom line dance". The men teaching it are also very clearly identified as not professional line dancers. Excellent.

Ridiculous mushroom clothing is encouraged. Tickets for the party are £5 and can be bought here.

Friday 2 – Sunday 4 October | Hay-on-Wye

GATHER ROUND

Monmouth has built an entire festival around telling stories

This feels made for autumn. Gather Round: Monmouth Festival of Stories is a new three-day festival filling the town with storytellers, folklore, mythology and performances from Friday to Sunday.

And rather than putting everything inside one anonymous conference room, it spills through Monmouth itself: theatres, gardens, pubs, historic buildings and the library.

Friday begins beautifully with Stories Under the Stars in Priory Gardens. Storyteller Alim Kamara takes over as the sun goes down, with everyone encouraged to bring blankets, chairs and a picnic. Adults are £10 and children £5.

Then Saturday gets superbly mythical.

At the Savoy, pioneering storyteller Sally Pomme Clayton performs The Mighty Goddess, travelling through stories of female gods, warriors, lovers, mothers and monsters from around the world. Later that night mythologist and author Dr Martin Shaw takes to the same stage.

There are events for families too, so this could very easily become one of those brilliant autumn days where you head somewhere for one thing and end up having a wonderful wander.

Also, Monmouth in early October. Pub. River. Old streets. Stories. Lovely.

Friday 2 – Sunday 4 October | Venues across Monmouth. More Info here

LITTLE FLUFFY CLOUDS. IN SHREWSBURY.

The Orb are playing The Buttermarket

Somewhere between school runs, packed lunches and remembering which day PE kit has to go in, I occasionally need reminding that I am still allowed to stand in a dark room listening to extremely good electronic music. So can you!

The Orb are playing The Buttermarket in Shrewsbury this Saturday.

The ambient electronic pioneers behind Little Fluffy Clouds have spent more than three decades making the sort of sprawling, dubby electronic music that makes considerably more sense at night.

They're bringing a live show with visuals, extended mixes and the deep, slightly strange soundscapes they've become known for.

There are apparently only a few tickets left, so I wouldn't ponder this one for a week.

Saturday 3 October | The Buttermarket, Shrewsbury

FRIDAY NIGHT IN LLANGOLLEN

Comedy, then find yourself a pub

The first-Friday Llangollen Comedy Club returns to the Town Hall this week.

Doors open at 7pm, tickets are £12.50 and it gives you a very simple reason to turn Friday into an actual night out rather than accidentally sitting down after tea and never moving again.

I'd build the rest of the evening around it. Walk by the Dee if you get there early. Find somewhere good to eat. Comedy. Pub afterwards. Done.

Friday 2 October | Llangollen Town Hall. Info and tickets here

A VERY GOOD FRIDAY NIGHT IN PRESTEIGNE

Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits and a tiny independent cinema

Presteigne Screen is one of those things I love finding in small towns. It's a volunteer-run independent cinema showing films from around the world to an audience of just 55 people.

This Friday they're screening Jim Jarmusch's Father Mother Sister Brother, winner of the Golden Lion at Venice, starring a fairly outrageous cast including Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett and Charlotte Rampling.

It's three stories about families, distance and the strange things people don't say to one another. Tickets are about the price of a large popcorn in some cinemas.

Then on Sunday the Assembly Rooms shifts into music and poetry with Silver from Distant Suns, a new work inspired by folk memory, old landscapes and the people who lived in Radnorshire before us.

Very autumn. Very Presteigne.

Friday 2 + Sunday 4 October | The Assembly Rooms, Presteigne. More info here

PERRY, PLEASE

Hereford is having an entire festival for the good stuff

Cider gets most of the glory around here, so I'm delighted to report that perry is getting its own day. Perryfest takes over Hereford's Museum of Cider this Saturday with tastings, talks, food, live music and family activities celebrating the drink made from perry pears.

For anyone outside these parts, perry can sound like cider's slightly obscure cousin. Around Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire it has centuries of history behind it, made from varieties of pear with extraordinary names and grown in orchards that form part of the landscape here.

Which means a festival at an actual cider museum feels entirely appropriate. Entry is at no cost, although some of the talks and tastings need booking in advance.

Saturday 3 October, 11am–5pm | Museum of Cider, Hereford. More info here

MANCHESTER, 1990-SOMETHING

24 Hour Party People is showing in Ludlow. For free.

This made me ridiculously happy. I went to university in Manchester and at one point wrote an entire essay about 24 Hour Party People where I started that it acted as a much better university prospectus.

Forget glossy photos of libraries. Here is Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson building Factory Records, Joy Division becoming New Order, Shaun Ryder causing chaos and the Haçienda swallowing enormous quantities of money. Welcome to Manchester. Your student loan will be gone by Christmas.

Michael Winterbottom's brilliant, semi-fictionalised trip through Manchester's music history is being shown at Ludlow Assembly Rooms next Tuesday as a free BFI screening.

If you've never seen it, go. If you have seen it, this feels like exactly the sort of film worth seeing again in a cinema.

And if you're another former Manchester student who still becomes weirdly emotional when someone mentions the Haçienda, I'll see you there.

Tuesday 6 October, 6pm | Ludlow Assembly Rooms | No cost. Tickets here.

THE NICE PILE

Québécois folk gets considerably rowdier than the word "folk" suggests: award-winning Le Vent du Nord bring traditional French-Canadian music, foot percussion and serious energy to LOOP in Shrewsbury on Friday. More Info Here

Make a pot: Eastnor Pottery near Ledbury has introductory wheel-throwing sessions on Saturday if your autumn fantasy currently involves becoming the kind of person who casually says "I've been doing some ceramics". More info here

For the Hendrix people: Voodoo Room bring the music of Hendrix, Cream and Clapton to Ludlow Assembly Rooms on Saturday. More info here

BEFORE YOU GO

October is probably my favourite month here.

Cold clean air, properly blue skies, crunchy leaves underfoot and that very specific urge to walk somewhere purely because there is a pub, coffee or slice of cake at the end of it.

The Marches really comes into its own now. Everything gets a bit cosier, a bit more beautiful and suddenly a solo wander, a family day out, a strange little date or an impulsive Tuesday-night cinema trip all feel like very good ideas.

So that’s my plan for the next few weeks. Keep finding reasons to get out in it.

You bring the jumper. I’ll keep finding the good stuff.

See you next Thursday.

Sarah x