shewhomust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shewhomust) wrote2024-08-05 04:50 pm
shewhomust) wrote2024-08-05 04:50 pm
Market by the sea
Instead of paying our monthly visit to Sedgefield for the Farmers' Market yesterday, we went to the Seaham Food Festival: the right choice, I think, since we saw several people there who we might otherwise have expected to see in Sedgefield.
On our last visit, two years ago, we had been been impressed by the park-and-ride bus service. Remembering this, we made the mistake of pulling into the first car park we encountered, quite a long way out: we had seen a sign for the park-and-ride, and we had seen a bus stop: what could go wrong? But once we set off down the hill, we saw the 'bus stop not in use' signs, and the next car parking hiding behind it; "Never mind," saiddurham_rambler, "I can see a bus just down there..." But no, what he had seen was a bus not in service, waiting in a layby. The bus we wanted was further still, beyond yet more parking.
This was trivial. When we finally reached the bus stop, the service was perfectly efficient. But it was annoying. File under: memo to self (another time, look for parking near bus stop).
We had a pleasant, sociable morning, talking to stallholders who recognise us, and stallholders who sort-of half recognised us, but weren't sure where from, and - this was a surprise - an ex-colleague (both of us now ex, since she has been made redundant by our once-shared employer. We agreed that they couldn't possibly manage without her).
I was restrained in my purchases, partly because the festival still suffers from multiple vendors of the same thing: with the best will in the world, there's a limit to how many scotch eggs we need. I'm not a gin-drinker, and I managed to resist most of the many sugar-based treats on offer: we bought some pasteis de nata, and a jar of gooseberry jam (hooray!) but resisted the Grasmere gingerbread and the flapjacks and the fudge and the macarons... Actually, I wasn't particularly tempted to buy the macarons, but I would have loved to photograph them: so many colours! But I'm self-conscious about photographing shop displays from which I don't want to buy; I will never make a street photographer.
So the photo of the day is of a particularly exuberant flower bed:
On our last visit, two years ago, we had been been impressed by the park-and-ride bus service. Remembering this, we made the mistake of pulling into the first car park we encountered, quite a long way out: we had seen a sign for the park-and-ride, and we had seen a bus stop: what could go wrong? But once we set off down the hill, we saw the 'bus stop not in use' signs, and the next car parking hiding behind it; "Never mind," said
durham_rambler, "I can see a bus just down there..." But no, what he had seen was a bus not in service, waiting in a layby. The bus we wanted was further still, beyond yet more parking. This was trivial. When we finally reached the bus stop, the service was perfectly efficient. But it was annoying. File under: memo to self (another time, look for parking near bus stop).
We had a pleasant, sociable morning, talking to stallholders who recognise us, and stallholders who sort-of half recognised us, but weren't sure where from, and - this was a surprise - an ex-colleague (both of us now ex, since she has been made redundant by our once-shared employer. We agreed that they couldn't possibly manage without her).
I was restrained in my purchases, partly because the festival still suffers from multiple vendors of the same thing: with the best will in the world, there's a limit to how many scotch eggs we need. I'm not a gin-drinker, and I managed to resist most of the many sugar-based treats on offer: we bought some pasteis de nata, and a jar of gooseberry jam (hooray!) but resisted the Grasmere gingerbread and the flapjacks and the fudge and the macarons... Actually, I wasn't particularly tempted to buy the macarons, but I would have loved to photograph them: so many colours! But I'm self-conscious about photographing shop displays from which I don't want to buy; I will never make a street photographer.
So the photo of the day is of a particularly exuberant flower bed: