I love a market. Memories of French weekly markets spring to mind. The whole centre of a town is closed off to all traffic but for feet, strollers and wheelchairs. People from all the surrounding areas descend on the stalls selling everything from seafood to cheese, from clothes to wicker baskets. It makes shopping and browsing an absolute pleasure.
I have happily visited markets in various different countries so, when I discovered that Lymington had one every Saturday, I was all over, excited with expectation. Today, being Saturday, I ventured out.
I was disappointed with the Lymington idea of a Saturday market. I can only assume that the council bowed down to the Car Lobby in order to make the market somewhat unpleasant, turning joy into nothing much special.
Don’t get me wrong, the stalls I visited were excellent and the people selling from them were all lovely, cheerful and smiling through their shivers – more than one claimed it was cold. The fish and meat I bought all looked excellent. In fact, the salmon from the fishmonger was delicious. I roasted it with a salad for dinner tonight.
No, the stalls were all good. No, the problem was the fact that the ‘closed off’ high street was not. Half of it was meaning traffic could only go one way but, the problem with that is that the market can only be accessed from the footpath. The road remains off limits to the shopper.
British country towns tend to have quite narrow footpaths and shops tend to put little A-frame signs outside them. The footpath is also liberally littered with various bits of essential street side furniture. Add to this squeeze the stalls that face the shops and you have the equivalent of a Marrakech souk but without the eastern allure.
In the meanwhilst, as possible shoppers fail to avoid each other while jostling for spots from which to purchase things, cars happily drive by, grinning maliciously in their pleasure at, once more, remaining supreme. I can only imagine the type of experience someone in a wheelchair would endure.
Such a shame.
