You'll have to excuse me if this is shorter than usual; I am writing from my parents' house, which overlaps with cyberspace in only one square metre of my sister's bedroom, much of which is occupied by a wardrobe. In a bid to lever my wireless network card into this vital space, I am sitting with one half of my bum on my sister's bed, one leg providing balance and the other supporting the laptop on the edge of my knee. About 90% of my brain is occupied in trying not to land in a heap on the floor.
Today's topic is the Ballysmile Fair Day, an event which, being second in magnitude only to The Twelfth, is, with almost cavilier recklessness, held annually in the same week, and encompasses virtually every reason I don't go out much. The day consists of a mixture of market stalls, bouncy castles, burger vans, and people-from-primary-school-I-haven't-seen-in-years-and-for-good-reason. Of course, as a child, I loved Fair Day, and went round the stalls like a tornado, buying up every fuzzy-colouring-in-board (remember those?) and inflatable hammer I could lay my hands on. But the intervening years have altered both my passions and the Fair, and Mama Smile and I agreed that it wasn't really 'our sort of thing', and we 'were'nt that fussed on going'.
So of course we had to call in, especially as we happened to be passing. And in fact, it was different to how I remember: much more in the way of knock-off electrical goods and pet supplies, not so many shell suits. Of course, some of the old reliables were still there: the bouncy castle, the lines of people queueing for burgers that they looked like they could have lived without, and as many 'Orange Volunteer', 'Protestant Boys' and 'RUC' pin badges as anyone could want. And I bumped into my best friend from primary school, who is one of those people-from-primary-school-I-haven't-seen-in-years-but-wish-I-had, as well as a few other friends of Mama Smile's, and their suddenly grown-up children, so it wasn't all bad.
Anyway, my leg's going numb, and I'm about to fall off the bed, so I'll go.
1 comment:
We don't have a yearly fair day in Bangor; every Wednesday is fair day. It's AWESOME! if you like socks, plants and fish. In fairness, I do go there to buy fish. Especially lovely squid.
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