Scraping the Ashbourne Barrel.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Ashbourne on a Wednesday used to be full of things to write blog posts about, but now it’s sadly lacking. I didn’t even see Gimli today. I see him every week, you know, plodding around with his staff and sporting a heavy grey beard which looks as though it ought to have lots of interesting creatures living in it but probably doesn’t. Today he was absent. Maybe he was busy mining whatever Gimlis mine in some remote cave in the Pennines, the southern end of which starts a few miles north of the town. It’s where we get the summer tourist traffic from, filling up Sainsbury’s car park because the parking is free for two hours.

(And talking of Sainsbury’s, I’m reliably informed that their stock of shopping trolleys has dwindled by around 60%. Seems the local ne’er-do-wells are stealing them for the scrap value, which at least adds a hint of notoriety to the dull old place.)

I did see something moderately interesting last week, though. One of the Turkish barbers from the Turkish barbers’ shop was standing outside the salon talking, laughing and gesticulating wildly to somebody who wasn’t there. He didn’t seem to have anything plugged into his ear, so maybe he was just overjoyed at having put some considerable distance between himself and Mr Erdogan. Well, who wouldn’t?