Was so busy in a hurry telling you some things about Glossop, clean forgot about the craft and sewing centre, the full-to-bursting art supplies shop, the fabric shop (like hen's teeth, they are, these days), furnishing fabrics shop, the ironing shop, umpteen hair and nail places (not my thing, big nails), cricket club (not my thing either but really English and nice to know it's there, esp as it houses the embroidery group once a month), swimming pool, 2 parks, all your banks and stuff, flower shops, holistic retreats and clinics, a proper vintage clothes place, wedding shops, photographers (yada yada yada)......... Oh and the sailing club. There's football, I think, but it's no good asking me about that. The Victorian style train station has been renovated - quite pretty and colourful.
In other words it's all crammed in to what is still a small town, I'm at a loss to think of anything major it hasn't got, and a cinema is the only thing I can come up with.
It says a lot that there is only one empty shop on the long High Street, and that might be a fault with the building itself judging by the scaffolding round it. My computer repair whizz and sales man has a shop in Handforth (south of Manchester) and another in Buxton. He wants to open a shop here. I think you can get repairs here in two places but not new or reconditioned computers.
But what's so good is that 98% of these shops are all independents, even the mobile phone place and, more to the point, they are thriving. Well to my untutored eye, anyway. There's a recession, I know. I have been paying attention.
An electrician called this morning to mend the transformer for the halogen lights in the kitchen. Said he'd lived in Glossop for years. He thought crime was probably the same here as anywhere, but I had a story to tell.
Just after I moved here, one Saturday evening about 6-ish, my car in a small supermarket's car park mysteriously lost its windscreen wipers, support struts and all, right down to the bodywork, wrenched off while I was shopping,
I pondered whether to bother reporting it. By the following Monday I decided I should. Insurance might want me to (though I didn't bother with that in the end) but mostly I decided my event might be part of a spate that night and might help the police to plot what had happened. I wasn't after any response, just to log it with them.
To my amazement a policeman came to visit that evening. He took the details. "Oh I know exactly which little tyke this will be," he said, and went on to elaborate on the lad's family background etc. He'd even checked cctv beforehand, but the cameras were on the building, not the car park. So tell me another county town where a policeman knows whodunnit like that, for minor car crime. Amazing. Well you might know one, so do tell!
And as a result of that evening's conversation, while he drank tea and was given my blessing to smoke his cigars but wasn't invited to partake in wine because he was on duty and driving, (what I actually said was "I'm having wine but you can't have any. Like another tea?"), I found out the best garage in the town to take my car for repairs. "Always ask the police where they take their own," he said.
Excellent.
Losing the wipers was probably worth it for finding a great garage, and the last time I was there for the MOT I came home with venison bacon and sausages too. They had a fridgeful for sale in the reception. Another priceless local connection!
Oh I do love it here.
And before I go :
in my list of reference sites on the sidebar, see the new one - over the next few days you can see whether the 15th Feb solar flare is going to show up in our aurora. Real time. I have their email alert and it's a red! But forecast says rain so..........
2 comments:
Oh! Now you have ME want to live in a town with everything, including tykes instead of baddies and policemen who will come round to smoke their cigars.
Of course, I am a little bit suspicious that not *everyone* has the same experience of this place you call Glossop. And my sneaking feeling is that it's you. YOU who draws wonderful people around yourself; good things; sausages!
This concept makes me smile bigly for you.
Jen – You’re probably right about my rosy view! There could be plenty I don’t see. There must be a reason for some of the houses having burglar alarms ! And let’s face it, I only dip in and out of the town. Self–imposed solitude is by definition selective! But thank you for your sweet, kind words.
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