Lying in bed on a weekend morning is never really an option now. Depressingly long years of getting up before daylight to make my way to work have put an end to that. Staying in bed till noon was a luxury left in the childness days. Breakfast TV is like watching a party for giggling 6 years olds so you have to find something to do.
This Sunday morning I decided to visit the Farmer's Market in Winchester. The farmer's Market is held every few weeks in the centre of town and this occasion was certainly blessed with a beautiful morning.
H. I and parked up the car and joined the crowds of Hampshire's well-heeled and well-scrubbed. They have come to give their tweed coats and wax jackets an outing in the fresh air and to demonstrate their 'green' credentials.
It seems like every smallholding within a forty mile radius of Winchester is here. There are stalls selling eggs, vegetables, cheeses, breads, jams, fish, cakes and a range of meats. One stall selling nothing but garlic has come from as far as the Isle of Wight. That guy must have left on Friday. I wondered if he knew about the storm that has been forecast with 80 mph winds. If he didn't leave soon he may be still here for the next market. Apparently the soil on the Isle of Wight is particulary friable and good for garlic growing. I wondered how a person can survice selling nothing but garlic until I see his prices at which point I nearly choked and it was not the smell of garlic.
Of course everything is handmade and more importantly 'organic'. 'Organic', the magic word. As opposed to the other sorts of meat, bread and vegetables. The inorganic stuff.
It is amazing how many livestock farmers are here with the organic products. There is organic beef, pork, lamb, chicken, duck and even buffalo. The latest buzz words are 'organic mutton'. Mutton was until very recently an unfashionable meat. Everyone wanted tender young lamb freshly imported from New Zealand on the other side of the world unless of course you could get hold of the glowing Welsh variety. Why does nobody mention Chernobyl any more? Did all that
radioactivity just disappear or was I asleep for 25000 years.
By the by, mutton is now fashionable. Our future monarch Prince Charles, in the unlikely event his mother should ever give way, tells us it is delicious and that is good enough for us at the Winchester market. It would be unpatriotic and possibly treason to disagree. I may be risking life imprisonment under the 1848 Treason Felony Act if I expounded further at this point. I wonder that rugby player new what he was risking when he started playing away from home with the sainted Princess Di.
I am distracted again. Everyone agrees that the market is a wonderful idea. By common consent the goods are all much better quality. Well all except those parsnips that look like they were dug from the bowels of hell and have been brought with much of it clinging to their sides.
