Ashbourne 05/09.

A singularly uneventful trip to Ashbourne this week. No chips, no fiddling sisters, no bargain purchases from charity shops. Even the fruit shop man’s daughter was absent. Her brother was there instead.

The only incident of note was that I complimented a young woman shop assistant on her hair. It was long and lustrous – and coloured red, yellow, orange and blue all over (as far as I could tell.)  ‘If you’re going to do it,’ I said, ‘do it big.’

We don’t see much of that sort of thing in Ashbourne; it’s a very staid town. The only man I ever saw wearing an earring was the camp vicar who runs one of the charity shops. He looks at me sometimes, you know, in a way that suggests he’s about to either preach or propose. I don’t hang around too long in that one.

And I expect the young woman will go home tonight with a tale to tell. 'Hey, everybody, this weird, ugly old bloke with a limp came into the shop today. And do you know what he said about my hair?' And she will be exaggerating, of course, since I don't have a limp. Yet.