Margaret Atwood’s Hay Journal: “Due to bureaucratic foot-dragging, things weren’t quite finished. The parking lot was a bog of squelchy red mud, the consistency my cholesterol-thickened bloodstream would be, I feared, after the binge of cheese-gobbling, double-cream feasting, and sheep’s milk ice-cream I knew I would shortly not be able to resist. Grimly smiling Welshmen were vacuuming up the standing water with giant water-sucking machines, while others spread woodchips wherever possible, singing mournful Welsh woodchip-spreading songs.”