Hay on Wye, Wales

Made up of a tangled grid of no more than a dozen streets, Hay-on-Wye was an irresistible little village that oozed country charm. With its quaint yet lively pubs, it's eccentric and overtly animated locals and an eleventh century castle as its centerpiece, I knew a few hours climbing its narrow paths and browsing its thirty plus bookshops was never going to be enough.

I set off solo, in an effort to see more. Kind of futile really especially since reading that one of the shops stocked more than 400,000 titles. I moved quickly through stores, flicking through two or three works before hastily replacing them on the shelf and setting off in a new direction. I passed a shop titled 'Murder and Mayhem', a shop that specialized in golf and badminton titles, and another that collected titles on apiculture - the study of bees - yep, bees. I browsed books on Dickensian London, entomology, ornithology, zoology, theology and anthropology. I came across works that were hundreds of years old and works that had been released just last month. I browsed weather worn titles adorning bookshelves in the street, open and at the mercy of the elements and trod the creaky floorboards of shops that were centuries old and had the smell of dust and just a hint of decay. I must have chanced across a hundred books by Tom Sharpe without actively - or at least consciously - seeking them out.

I walked up narrow paths and marveled at the gray stone castle set majestically above and behind its popular outdoor bookshop. Young conifers standing guard, ensuring everyone obeyed the honesty policy of the unmanned shelves. At just twenty pence a paperback and a mere fifty for the hardbacks, it seemed more than reasonable.

I sipped a cappuccino at a table out the front of a country café. A frilly doily and cinnamon teacake type place that cried out to be featured in some magazine called 'Country Life' or the like. Trying my darndest to look a little sophisticated and ten types of cool, I flicked through my latest purchase, Gandhi. Without trying to appear like the world's biggest wanker - and probably failing miserably - I crossed my legs and lent back ever so slightly letting the sun catch my brow. I could live in place like this. So many titles, so little time.

A little bed-sit, a PC and a kickass bookshelf was all I'd need. Good coffee, atmospheric pubs and the trucks, bikes and chicks channel on cable and I'd be sorted. It was around about then that reality slapped me in the forehead. I was living on VISA and borrowed time in London let alone dreams of settling in some small time, Welsh country village. Employers were hardly belting down my door in the big smoke and somehow I doubted whether web design was too big in Hay-on-Wye, just yet. No, it was back to London for me. I'd definitely find a job on Monday.