Lockdown from Bridport - Part 2 - Day 1

Someone asked me yesterday if I would resume my daily lockdown diary, having kindly said that they enjoyed reading the last one. 'Something to brighten my day' were the words, if I recall correctly, so Becky, (a talented fellow stall holder) this is for you!

Yesterday was (I think, because nobody has said 'aye or nay') the last of the markets for a while. There was a whiff of acceptance on the air, a feeling of resigned tiredness. The weather was faultless for a change which always lifts the spirits. I am feeling very buoyed up with a new venture on the horizon which I can't divulge just yet...(But I will, I promise, as I am bursting to share my news with you).

Anyway back onto the street where my feet were becoming cold, my bones chilled and I was trying very hard not to appear grouchy. A couple of chaps were lingering and clutching a professional looking camera. They edged closer, 'would I mind being filmed for the Bridport literary festival which was taking place'? I could hardly refuse could I? The next five minutes consisted of me giving a toe curlingly embarrassing performance as I plugged my own book shoving the cover into the camera and whirling like a dervish in my preloved cashmere coat. 'Relove preloved!' I chanted, 'fast fashion does not age gracefully'. 'Hear hear' one of the men chorused as they shoved the camera nearer my face. I stopped suddenly. 'Please God don't show that to anyone!' I begged but they were off. 

I hear that the authoress Raynor Winn, who wrote the brilliant novel The Salt Path and The Wild Silence was giving a talk at the Arts Centre that very day, a mere hop, skip and a jump from my humble stall. 'If only I had known' I later said to 'The Undertaker' as we supped a few pre lockdown snifters with socially distanced friends. 'I could have sent her a signed copy of 'Last Tango in Carcassonne'. 'In many ways, I continued, we both embarked on a journey that was fraught with unseen obstacles that finally, when the journey was over, we discovered we had triumphed against all odds'. 'The Undertaker' looked at me with barely concealed amazement that I could even draw a comparison between the two. 

After that we very sensibly called it a day and went home and ate far too much chocolate.