You know that you're a cussed old bag when...
Everyone is having a lovely time at the food fair, meandering slowly in groups of several plus at least one pushchair, through the absolutely chocabloc crowded town centre, pausing here for a while to see what this stall is selling, pausing there for a while longer to savour the delicious aroma, pausing again to WILL YOU JUST MOVE, DAMMIT, BEFORE I BARGE MY WAY THROUGH THE LOT OF YOU, ALL I WANT TO DO IS MOVE.
Maybe the delights of crowds - and food festivals - are wasted on me.
As to further examples of rag dolls, the two I saw today, with their tutu style skirts and their cocky hats and their stocking tops, almost certainly were dressed up for something. Weren't they? They were definitely the most cheerful thing on the street (though given the street in question, that wasn't hard). But even better, I thought, was the small boy singlemindedly licking the inside (natch) of a bus window. Such things do give a day character. Something distinctive. It can be a perfect cloud or a stark, storm-lit landscape; nuthatches on the bird feeder or a little girl crouched down and talking very seriously to Peppa Pig on a packet of cake mix, completely wrapped up in the moment. When I was in London last summer for the day, I got back on the train and made a quick list of things that had caught my eye in the previous few hours. Sort of coathooks for memories:
beach huts
heron in the park
roses
free bikes
grubby Thames
a NatWest boat going under a bridge and looking like a spaceship
free runners practising
immigrant poems
Trojans and Greeks
fiddlers on Millennium Bridge.
Though some of the coathooks don't have anything hanging on them - what roses? I like the list just the same - it works for me in the same way as sketches. If I hadn't been driving, maybe I could have sketched the rag dolls in stockings today.
Everyone is having a lovely time at the food fair, meandering slowly in groups of several plus at least one pushchair, through the absolutely chocabloc crowded town centre, pausing here for a while to see what this stall is selling, pausing there for a while longer to savour the delicious aroma, pausing again to WILL YOU JUST MOVE, DAMMIT, BEFORE I BARGE MY WAY THROUGH THE LOT OF YOU, ALL I WANT TO DO IS MOVE.
Maybe the delights of crowds - and food festivals - are wasted on me.
As to further examples of rag dolls, the two I saw today, with their tutu style skirts and their cocky hats and their stocking tops, almost certainly were dressed up for something. Weren't they? They were definitely the most cheerful thing on the street (though given the street in question, that wasn't hard). But even better, I thought, was the small boy singlemindedly licking the inside (natch) of a bus window. Such things do give a day character. Something distinctive. It can be a perfect cloud or a stark, storm-lit landscape; nuthatches on the bird feeder or a little girl crouched down and talking very seriously to Peppa Pig on a packet of cake mix, completely wrapped up in the moment. When I was in London last summer for the day, I got back on the train and made a quick list of things that had caught my eye in the previous few hours. Sort of coathooks for memories:
beach huts
heron in the park
roses
free bikes
grubby Thames
a NatWest boat going under a bridge and looking like a spaceship
free runners practising
immigrant poems
Trojans and Greeks
fiddlers on Millennium Bridge.
Though some of the coathooks don't have anything hanging on them - what roses? I like the list just the same - it works for me in the same way as sketches. If I hadn't been driving, maybe I could have sketched the rag dolls in stockings today.
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