Saturday 15 June 2013

Ampthill

Spend the morning by accident in Ampthill. I haven't visited for maybe twenty years. I don't remember the Waitrose.

But it's a charming little town isn't it? So many people smiled and said good morning to me I wondered if I'd actually lived here at number 32 for the last 50 years with my cats and my piano and I just forgot.


Besides the Waitrose, it has a wonderful antiques emporium, a wine merchant, beauty parlour, interior design shop, and an artisan food merchant, so let that combination place it properly on your gentility scale. 

I don't think I can live here. Once they find out about my taste for the car boot sale they might not have me. 

But there's a delightful craft shop. I bought a stock of lovely lizard paper, so you can expect a reptile notebook soon. You won't be able to visit after August because she's closing down. The global economy touches us all, and Hobbycraft doesn't help; neither do the online orders you can place for your silver sparkles and A1 board. 

Isn't this just the problem with small towns off the main run, whose claims to stardom are few and far between? 

Instead of driving past them at speed, leaving them as small towns of unwandered England, I resolve to find myself more often forced by circumstance to need a cash point and a packet of biscuits.


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