Why I love the Hay Festival

I've just come back from a weekend at the Hay Festival. I first went when I was in my teens and I've loved it ever since. Sometimes, when my husband and I tell people we're going, we see a familiar glazed look come into their eyes (actually, this year, my husband told a colleague of his who looked positively lit up with excitement - until he realised it was a literary festival not a music event!) and then we have to struggle to explain to them what we see in it. So, what exactly do I love about it?

I love the crowd and the ambience of the place. It feels as though I can soak up literature as I soak up the sun. On a hot and sunny weekend, like this one has been, it's great to sit on the Hay garden and people-watch.

Over there, a group of 20-something lads laughing and chugging beer out of plastic glasses, just as they would at a music event. You get closer and hear them discussing Simon Schama's lecture on the way Americans are growing up in terms of how they are learning to understand their political history and their current place in it.

A little further over, a man in his 40s is stretched full length on the grass taking a nap under his fedora hat. When you check out the open programme on his lap, you realise he's waiting to see Sarah Waters talk about her latest novel, which this time round is a "haunted house story" with not even a "token lesbian" in it.

Around the other side, there's a couple of women in their 30s, designer shades on, sipping Pimms and champagne. Sidle nearer to them and you'll hear them discussing the AC Grayling lecture and the importance of freedom and civil liberties, over and above everything, including the security of the nation.

What an interesting crowd Hay attracts; a multicoloured mix, not defined by age, gender, race, religion, or sexuality, and united by a love of all kinds of literature. Hay is a contemplative place, it offers culture in a relaxed fashion. It's a place I have gone to be inspired by a lecture or just to lie and read on the garden. Or, to put it in the words of a fellow festival-goer I overhead today, "I have gone there and thought thoughts".

Lovers of literature - these are my people and I love them!