Well after yesterday's escalation of paranoia I went for a run after shrieking down the phone at the poor poacher like some kind of hysterical harpy. Suffice to say we sorted it out quite quickly and with his sweet ways he deflated my bubble of insecurity pretty quick. Phew..thinking seriously about life without him and all I have gained through him, made me very very sad.
It's funny how some people just know how to be with you instinctively when you're all over the place and others just escalate the situation by making it all about them...or ..taking the piss or saying nothing.....
So once crisis over we went up the allotment where we found Rich and JC just about to make a visit to Tony the Pig to buy more chickens...
We got the chickens and we also got four Indian Running ducks ! ....they're comedy gold ...running everywhere in tight formation quacking away...I
On the way home I found a battered Jackdaw which had been hazed in the big crow fights which are going on at the moment, half its tail feathers were missing. I shoved it in a ferret box, took it home and went off collecting insects for it, made it a nest and left it in the shed. I called it Glove as when I first saw it I thought it was a lost pair of gloves.
Unfortunately when I went to check it at 6.30 this a.m it was stiff as a board. So it will add to my skull collection...currently being collected for animation purposes. I am trying to find out about preservation and curing of dead animal skins.
And so to one of the most important days of the year ! The annual pilgrimage to the Horse Fair...
Off we all toddled, too early to be properly organized, up to Appleby.
It's always busy there when the weather is as good as it was today....but I've never been up on the weekend I usually go mid week...and Jesus was it was rammed. If we hadn't got parked up by 9.00 it would have taken hours to get through the crowd of bareback riders, sulky & trap drivers, ice cream scarfing rubber necking tourists and all manner of Traveller contingents from across the country.
Sunday is obviously posing day...naturally the Fair hums with hormones..all them young people looking to find a suitable mate, all half naked bare back on horses in the river....and the overpowering scent of anarchy in the air...it's a heady mix. The coppers looked red faced and frustrated as they are so out numbered and ancient by laws mean for a few days there is really very little they can do.....whilst every traveller and pissed up wide boy in attendance takes the piss as much as possible.
A new departure this year...or maybe just a Sunday thing, was the super-tanned & over made- up girls all dressed from 12 years up like eastern european pole dancers.....though some still stuck to their jeans and gaiters thank god. The lads generally favour bare chests, mullets, tuffa boots and riding whips....sometimes a flat cap or trilby and heavy gold for both sexes.
The usual glitzy schmaltz was on sale...genuine (!) Armani tracksuits for a tenner, solid gold rolex watches for twenty quid. Godawful flouncy nets and Chanel bedspreads..Irish hybrid Gypsy Grime and Country and Western competing through cheap speakers..2 CDs for a fiver.. the Fortune Tellers and Card Sharps still managing to drag people into their particular game....so much to see and chuckle at.
We had a great day watching the trotters and dreaming of affording some of the bigger horses...and talking about getting land between us....and of course I was taking photos, and meeting up with people...I would have stayed into the evening and jammed into the pubs to listen to the songs and stories but my companions are not used to so many people all together and were ,as men, a little worried about the (likely) odds of something kicking off....so we spent an hour trying to drive through the mass of whistling, laughing, galloping, barking, crying hordes and trundled on our way.
I'll stick up some photos tomorrow, as I doubt my words could ever do it justice.
Managed to lay to rest some demons too...part of what I think yesterday may have been about. I felt a little wobbly before getting there, remembering the year before last...but once there I felt I belonged much more and was at ease far more than when I was there with the actor....a familiar feeling in many settings...and something of a relief....and this time when a fortune teller tried to grab my hand and tell me "something very important" I just laughed and walked away.