Just in case it wasn't clear, Waitrose is NOT coming to Hay

Tonight we went to a wine-and-cheese tasting at the Primary School, a fundraiser for the school hosted by Waitrose, who hoped to spread the word about their new delivery service to Hay-on-Wye.

The fellow hosting got sidetracked, initially, throwing out masses of numbers, records for the most deliveries in the first week, number of people served, blah, blah, blah. He went on a bit, while we sat patiently with our little empty taster glasses, staring longingly at the already filled classes on display at the table in front of us.

Eventually he got around to serving the first glass of wine, and talking about the accompanying cheese. While we dutifully swirled, sniffed, looked at the color, etc, someone asked if Waitrose was coming to Hay.

"No. Never. Never was intended, never will" he said, a bit forcefully, in my opinion.

"Why not?" was the response shot back to him, quite smartly, by a lady at the back.
The entire room snorted in response.

And waited for his response.

He backpedaled, and then gave some perfectly reasonable sounding answers, snarky inflection absent from his voice now.

You see, rumors abound here. One of the biggest ones was that Waitrose was going to build a store on the site of the school. When the school built a new building. Which is another long-overdue, much discussed occasion, but that is a totally different story.

But, as a bit of a bystander, still, it was hilarious to observe the back and forth between the tasters and the Waitrose guy...

although, I'm sure the hearty pours we were "tasting" had something to do with the amusement level. Believe me, there was no spitting going on in the room.

And, as the drinking continued, our host's comments got zingier and zingier. He definitely loosened up.

We enjoyed some mediocre wines, a good one, and some lovely cheese.
And were very happy that we walked to school that evening.

But, again, just to be clear, they are NOT coming to Hay.
Never. Ever.