It was 10.32am when we got in the car (Mum had a bobbly hat on and I’d forgotten to check the temperatures) – and Google Maps began giving navigation instructions: the building work that had been going on next to a nearby road looked almost complete; on the A46 I spotted a couple of massive tyres (that looked like they may’ve originated from a tractor) on the roadside, the junction to Warwick and Solihull was labelled by 1 road sign as ‘Stanks’, and 139.9p/L and 146.9p/L were prices at a BP station approaching the Longbridge Roundabout. Further along the A46 the fields either side of the road were misty, Mum tried to make sheep noises, there were massive fields of solar panels next to Alcester Road, a very very fluffy dog had his or her paws on a windowsill and was stood gazing out of a window of a house in Binton, the road through Luddington had on it a phone box containing a defibrillator; and at 11.07am, people were packing up at Stratford racecourse and the car boot sale seemed over.
A man was sat in the door of a Dethleffs campervan looking stoned and singing to himself, and a small woman with partially pink hair told us that people arrive at 6.30am to set up their stalls/tables, it’s a couple of hours and mostly dealers looking for stuff to sell on, and she described today as ‘flat’ – as people hadn’t received their monthly pay yet (and their mostly dismantled table had a wooden camel on it).
We returned to the car (avoiding the big muddy puddles); prices at a Shell petrol station approaching Stratford were 141.9p/L for petrol and 153.9p/L for diesel; and at 11.30am – we discovered the market in the town centre was going on.
Things for sale included interesting wooden statues, toy Eddie Stobart lorries, Irish tweed flat caps, a lot of vinyl records (and that stall had ‘Hit me baby one more time’ playing in it), a Balanced Witchcraft stall had an incense stick burning on it, one called For The Love Of Pies had haggis and potato pies (among a huge number of others), and another one – called Wild Flowers – was selling unusual honeys, and the foreign accented man there raved about the medicinal properties of honey. My mother got rather insistent for coffee at that point, and we sat down in a shop where I noticed a jar of dog biscuits on a shelf, and a man outside was getting close to snogging his dog due to the way he was bent over enthusiastically scratching the dogs ears, a woman inside was struggling to fold up a pram in the cramped interior of this place, and we didn’t stay long. On the move again I saw a Collie dog with 1 blue eye and 1 brown eye (and his or her owner), and a bit further along was ‘Magic Alley’ – selling cannabis incense sticks, opium incense cones, marble eggs, various magic instruction books, skulls, and ice cold butter beer…
A Black Sheep Barber Shop was offering 20% off all Slick Gorilla products; passing the honey stall again meant I spotted loquat, holm oak, coriander, zandaz, sidr, and arbutus honeys; an Oreo and Nutella chocolate something I forgot was on another one, a Beltman stall was offering belt making demonstrations, and a strong fish and chip smell was wafting along the street our car was parked on. There were a couple of little boys attempting ambitious spinning tricks on 2 wheeled scooters on the pavement of the road out of town – upon which traffic had built up massively, and there was at least a mile of it in the other direction; and at a garden centre at 12.55pm – there was a strong smell of spaghetti bolognese, a very fluffy (looking lively – with his or her owner) dog with one brown eye and one blue eye, tubs of ‘fish, blood and bone’ plant food, and unbelievable numbers of Christmas baubles (and no waterbutt components – the purpose of the stop), so we were out by 1pm.
Once on the move again, we were on a road where multiple trees had ‘Warning: 24 hour drone surveillance in operation’ notices nailed to them; we popped out on to the A46 (and Mum started using her method of squirting the car windscreen with water/de-icer to try and splatter the one of the car creeping up very close behind ours and discourage it from getting any closer), and 136.7p/L and 142.7p/L were petrol and diesel prices at Morrisons. Egg replacer, xanthan gum, seaweed flakes, and banana chips were what I saw while briefly stopping in a peculiar little shop at the end of the town for something I forgot, and a tiny boy was running down the pavement outside with a woolly hat pulled down over his eyes (he then started honking the horn of the car he was about to get into); a BMW with a very odd number plate was briefly followed before going up the road home – reached at 1.39pm, where there were a lot of leaflets in the letter box (and our return awoke Soot – the 20 year old cat).
