Tonight we had a customer who dawdled so I set off home ten minutes late. With the addition or rain, roadworks and a broken down car, this turned my journey home into a 50 minute marathon. With clear roads in the morning I expect the reverse journey with take ten to fifteen minutes. When I got home Julia was already there, looking wet and bedraggled. She had been caught in the rain and her bus journey home had been even more unpleasant than my car trip.
The trouble is Goose Fair. The bus had actually had to make a couple of diversions to avoid the worst blockages.
The truth is that the city streets are not suited to the rush of visitors that accompanies the fair. It should be moved out to the edge of the city. Unfortunately nobody wants it on their doorstep. The noise and smell of fried onions are a nuisance, but they aren’t great inconveniences. Even the parking problems and congestion aren’t the worst things. That is, as one of my friends once told me, the feeling that anything in your garden that isn’t nailed down is likely to be stolen.
They used to cancel their milk for the duration of the fair as it was always stolen. OK, that’s a long time ago (I’m not sure anyone delivers milk now) but the principle remains the same. It’s here for ten days this year, supposedly to allow the stallholders to recover after Covid. It’s going to be an unpleasant interlude.
It shouldn’t affect my journey much but it is not going to be much fun for Julia. We may have to look at an alternative route home for her. In the mornings we will continue to take the long way round and avoid the place.
Yes, I’m a grumpy sod, and yes, it isn’t the view that usually makes it into the local papers But it’s all good source material for my future biographer.
Vegetable soup from October 2014. Was it really so long ago? Top picture is home made piccalilli.