Max Boyce proved a winner with locals on the preview night of this year's Hay Festival.

Oggy Oggy Oggying and getting the crowd on its feet to his version of the Haka, the choice of a Welsh legend set the flavour for a bigger event, more rooted in its border location.

The familiar Orange cafe has gone, in its place Blas foods.There's more Welsh in the programme, with a Sunday morning talk on the new library of Wales (the publishing of 20 lost voices of Wales by Parthian Books) particularly lively.

Saturday's wind must have caused festival officials some concern, as marquees flapped interminably and the voices of Stephen Fry and the likes were sometimes lost in the elements.

"It's like being aboard ship," the literary luminary jested, which caused a great deal of laughter and host, festival director Peter Florence to relax a bit.

By Sunday, in true British fashion, it was the heat which was causing the concern as people exited the mid-day debates fanning themselves.

By Monday things had stabilised and the multitude of deck chairs in the festival site filled with relaxed day-trippers and overhung party animals (there's a strong undercurrent of night-time frivolity amid all the learnedness).

It's a new site, slightly out of town, which may cause some Hay businesses to fare less well but it's obviously a required expansion.The larger, more comfortable site is still packed but there's more chance of getting a last minute ticket to something big.

Goldie Hawn's been and gone, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro have revealed some insight into their newest work and Tony Benn and folk singer Roy Bailey have shared a stage. The 18th festival has settled in.

Bank holiday crowds were ruffled by being kept waiting for more than an hour for the double-bill musical entertainment by the superb Mauritanian singer Daby Toure and the sound check hogging London-based Oi Va Voi (who had apparently caused the long delay).

Half the crowd took the money-back option but the remaining throng was rewarded with some great music. Free interval drinks went some way to soothe tempers, but send the primadonnas home in future.

The addition of the Film Four cinema at Hay Castle is a cool one, with an intriguing selection of work and talk and a great chillout area - inside and out - far from the madding crowds below.

Rumours abound that this "isn't such a big name year - there's no Updike" but there's Hawn and Jane Fonda for goodness sake, and no - they're not literary heavyweights - but they're great crowd-pullers and people will always criticise.

If Hay isn't on your agenda for this weekend then the reason better be sound. As long as you pack your flip-flops, thick socks, suntan lotion and wellies then you'll be guaranteed a sniff of something fun, special, affordable and half-an-hour away.

There's plenty of good stuff still to come so check it out at www.hayfestival com or call the box office on

0870 9901299.

You could do a lot worse than just soaking up the atmosphere.

JULIE HARRIES