It's very easy to get the bus from Clayworth into Retford, so we did, particularly as I'd read in my first mate guide that Friday is bric-a-brac market day. It's not exactly what I'd call cheap though, at four pounds eighty return, each. Maybe I'm behind the times. Retford has a spanking new bus station, with a coffee bar, dedicated doors for each bus... And toilets: one each for ladies and gents, with loo, washbasin and handdrier all behind one door. Yep, one loo each, and people had to wait for the occupant to wash and dry their hands too. A long queue formed. Why on earth couldn't they have put in three or four while they were at it? I had time to observe this phenomenon as the bus that was due at 2.30 failed to turn up. Unlike on the railway, there was no announcement, no source of information, it just disappeared from the parture board to be replaced with the time of the next one an hour and a half later. Was it cancelled, in which case we could go off and do something else for an hour, or was it just delayed? No way of knowing. No one else seemed at all peturbed so we assumed this was normal. Just as Jim asked someone we recognised from the boat club, the bus rolled in, twenty minutes late. Entertainly, the driver make up some time on the way back. Nice as the bus and the bus station were, this reminds me why I mistrust bus travel.
Never mind, it was worth the trouble if not the £9.60. Retford's no Newark, but it's a decent enough shopping town, and it does have a market. We were able to pick up a few more tots - a nice old filter funnel that can be seen in the engine room (unlike the current plastic one); a big porridge (or, indeed, plum crumble) bowl for Jim; an old cornflour tin, and a rather super brass semi-perpetual calendar, if the could be such a thing. Wriggle its dials and ypu can read off what day it was on any date from 1943 to 1970. A niche market you might have thought, but I later saw another one, covering 2003 - 2032. The first one's dates fit nicely with the boat though, and it's just the right sort of decorative tat.
The plum crumble is in the oven, and lots of boats have set off from here to Drakeholes, the original site of the Retford and Worksop Boat Club when it was found fifty years ago, from where they will parade back, iluminated, and enjoy a celebratory supper of bread and dripping in the clubhouse.
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Location:Retford,United Kingdom
In the context of "Entertainly, the driver make up some time on the way back", does "Entertainly" mean Certainly, or Entertainingly, or is it a a new form of text speak that means 'In a manner that was Certainly Entertaining'?
ReplyDeleteJust thought I'd ask :-)
Slightly more usefully, if you set your semi-perpetual calendar to Sept 4th 1949 you will find it is a Sunday, thus providing you can recall the real year, the Month, Day, and Date will be correct.
I must admit that I haven't checked for leap years, but we can leave that to a more appropriate time :-)
Regards, David.