Alice in the Shambles

We took a trip down to Stroud's Friday market in the Shambles today, to get some street shots, as part of my drive to make every day Streeterday. Being a bit late arriving, we found most stalls trying to pack up, but I was in time to buy some Bara Brith and cheese scones from the Country Market (see yesterday's blip for the jammy details). CleanSteve took some shots of the cave below the Old Town Hall, which is now home to the country market, but was once the town's fire station.

At the house-clearance stall, I spotted some vintage kitchenalia, and a row of Italian aluminium espresso coffee makers. CleanSteve always needs a spare one of these, so he went off to the cashpoint, while I stood contemplating a tiny camping kettle with a proper whistle. Just then my friend Alice turned up, so I asked her to pose for me. She got the hang of it easily, and asked me if I was planning to run any creative writing workshops. This is something I haven't done for years, but she said we could use her house as the venue. It has a garden, too, so we're going to talk about this further. Of course, plenty of other people have started running workshops in the years since I gave up, so it's gratifying that I still get enquiries.

I bought the kettle for £1, and we went off to take some shots of an old stairwell, which CleanSteve needed to do. A youth group was rehearsing in the hall, and were ironing fabulous French costumes from the 1920s/30s in the green room downstairs. I was tempted to try and blip them, but it's street month for me, so I decided to try and see the play tomorrow instead. We had been planning to go to Surrey tomorrow, and meet up with fellow blipper Richard Donkin. Unfortunately CleanSteve took a tumble on the walk back to the car, and is now in no fit state to drive. Luckily I was able to summon help, and we got back home in time for me to administer Rescue Remedy and painkillers before rushing off to work at the rehab.

The poem-a-day thing is definitely suffering from a lack of quality, but I will post up a link when I have put today's effort online at Wordpress. I admit that blipfoto is my real love, and poetry networking is a poor second fiddle.
Here

Alternative shot: street massage at Brother Burdock's hippy hospital in the Shambles