Apropos of yesterday's post and the facial swelling relapse; I had occasion yesterday to make a payment using my banking App. Now this App uses facial recognition as a secondary security feature - the bloody thing wouldn't recognise me!
A couple of weekends a year, Chipping Sodbury holds what's called a Mop Fair from a Friday to Saturday, and there was one this weekend. It's an excuse for a bit of a party with funfair rides in the High Street, along with lots of food and drink. I avoid it like the plague - it's a funfair on steroids.
The name Mop Fair comes from history. In days gone by, employers would hold a fair at which they recruited staff and labourers - a kind of employment exchange. Depending on what hind of employees they were looking for - farm labourers, shepherds, domestic staff, etc. - they would wear a coloured tassel on their lapel, each colour being associated with a particular kind of employment. These tassels were called mops - hence Mop Fair.
In preparation for the Mop Fair, the street is cleared of all parked traffic, which lines both sides of the wide street, so as to give maximum space to the event. Chipping Sodbury has an unusually wide High Street, due to it having been a market town for the sale and purchase of sheep and cows. The animals would have been driven into the High Street and penned up for sale.
On Sunday mornings after the fair, the scene is unlike any other Sunday morning, as the stalls have all been cleared late on the Saturday night, yet the cars, which normally line both sides, thickly parked at 90 degrees to the line of the street, haven't returned - it's eerie.
This was Chipping Sodbury High Street at 7 o'clock yesterday morning, when I went to get my Sunday paper.
No comments:
Post a Comment