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Saturday 18 November 2023

Demented Christmas Crowding



Visited Bakewell this morning. Set off reasonably early as usual, aiming to arrive shortly before 10am which is generally okay for Bakewell even on a weekend.

Strewth – one car park was already full, the other filling up rapidly, people all over the place and it wasn’t even 10am. It wasn’t a special event, just a bit of a scrubby market, but demented Christmas crowding seems to have taken a firm hold now. What's the attraction? The aroma of fried onions? I don't know.

Just managed to get a coffee on our third attempt to find a coffee shop which wasn’t full, drifted round the antiques centre which wasn’t too busy, bought what we’d originally gone in for and left. By then the roads in Bakewell were jammed with traffic queuing for the car parks and for about a mile beyond Bakewell.

Made it curiously satisfying to be leaving.

3 comments:

DiscoveredJoys said...

I used to avoid going to Leicester up to 6 weeks before Christmas because it was too crowded and unpleasant.

I now don't go all year... unless I have to get the car serviced at the dealership.

Sam Vega said...

I hate crowds, and the worst of it is that I want to refer to everyone else as stupid, but know that most of them are doing the same as me.

When they are blocking my way because they are interested in something I'm not, though: then they really are insufferably stupid.

A K Haart said...

DJ - we only visit Derby for the same reason, to get the car serviced. Derby has nothing we want that we can't get elsewhere in more congenial surroundings.

Sam - yet many people seem to like crowds, as if they like the noise and the general atmosphere. It is so easy to see the liking as at least a little dim.