Thursday, 16 May 2013

Ashbourne Happenings.

None, near as dammit. I don’t know what’s happened to Ashbourne these days; it’s become terribly mundane. I didn’t even go over my time in Sainsbury’s car park today, which I always do. Nothing fun, funny or even mildly interesting happens there now.

Still, I did get two tomato plants from the garden centre. They were in much better condition than the ones they had last week. I didn’t put them out, though, since we’re forecast another frost tonight. And Shropshire, which is a county only about forty miles from here, had two inches of snow last night. Blow trumpet, the world is white with snow. Seems Tennyson got it only half right.

Today’s choice from the Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference range of beers is good old Yorkshire bitter. They all come in differently shaped bottles, you know, and the top on the Yorkshire bitter bottle proved to be the one most resistant to being prised off. Yorkshire people are like that. Yorkshire originated the saying ‘Ee, lad, it’s grim up north.’ And the label on the bottle describes it as ‘Demerara sweetness with full malt body and citrus overtones.’ I’d lay odds on that a Yorkshireman didn’t write that. That’s poncy southern talk, that is. A Yorkshireman would have said ‘It’s bitter, lad. What more dust tha want?’ It is, too. The next one to try is Suffolk Blonde. Sounds like a floosie with a funny accent doesn’t it – one step removed from an Essex girl? I could do with one of those. On second thoughts…

So that’s about the sum of today’s Ashbourne experience. The swish new, purpose-built, ultra-modern library should be open soon. It’s in a handier location than the old one, so I’ll go in and see whether my old chat buddy James is still around. James and I used to talk a lot. He disagreed with most things I said, but he always did so with such a diffident manner. There aren’t many old fashioned English gentlemen like that left any more.

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