Away with the faeries

Just so as you know, there really is a shop that sells 'faeries' in my town! I have never been in it, because I once had the misfortune to run a stall next to the faerie woman at a Christmas craft fair. After hearing her describe these sculptures as "enchanting" for the ninety-ninth time, I had the strongest urge to pick one up and accidentally drop it in the region of her head. Only the carolling of the wholly innocent children stopped me.

The sky was the most brilliant azure today, but I have chosen a shot without sky, because I wanted to show a detail or two. Stroud's High Street is pedestrianised, and this shot is taken from a bench at the top. Not everyone ventures this far up because, strangely, there is a low wall at the top, known locally as The Berlin wall, erected in the 80s to prevent cars, cyclists, skateboarders and traffic from hurtling down Nelson Street (above the High Street), across the traffic of Cornhill and down the High Street at a death-defying speed. The intersection just above where the wall now stands used to be known as The Cross, and was once the centre of trading. It's on a steep slope, so trading would have been tricky! See image here.

My favourite piece of random information about this street is that, in times gone by, flaming barrels of pitch were rolled down it on 5th November. They must have picked up some speed by the time they reached Merrywalks, 250 yards below. Nowadays you'd be lucky to be allowed to place a lighted candle on a craft stall.

My sister TMLHereandThere has blipped the inside of the Weaving Shed (to the far right of this picture) here. I have just read her journal for that day and noticed that today, too, there was a saxophonist busker on the High Street, the apples are coming back into fruition, while leaves are on the turn. It is almost ten months to the day since we last met. Help! I feel a haiku coming on:

apples tumble, nights draw in,
but autumn's coach is velvet lined
- in the fall , we meet.