This morning, at just after 8am, I hopped on the bus to Oxford for the first time since November, and had a jolly good time at the Gloucester Green Market, open Wednesdays Thursdays and Saturdays always in the Green spot but different each time, from 9am. I plugged in my headphones and played a gig while I was sated by the sensations of the world...
This time, I got myself a "Keep calm and f*** off" gold tin box for my Pokémon cards. I was going to buy a old man's flat checked cap, but my parents would despise me for it.
I stayed for the food stalls, specifically the Kasewurst (cheese sausage in a jumbo roll with saueurkraut and fried onions) German food stall; the Chinese food stalls - £1 a pop for 5 dumplings spring onions and a fried Tempura battered prawn; and the Greek stall, where for £6 the amiable fella there made me a supersized Taco Tortilla Roll with Grilled Chicken Veggies and Hot Sauce...mouth-watering, all of it. And they had three benches to sit down in that area of tents. There were many more gazebos perched around, people serving Paella, Goulash (Hungarian beef), Polish food, baked goods, cakes, you name it! I had a lovely morning...and it was all washed down with a Valentines glass of "you too" red from the barmaid at the Beehive. I love those people, they bring sunshine to my cold, dark heart scales.
So...who said Oxford was all bad? I did, once upon a time, but only hypothetically. I'm redeveloping my relationship with the place, realising there are so many things I missed out on even when I lived there. I also bought Moby - Porcelain (a memoir); David Bowie - Hero (Lesley-Ann Jones); Penguin Café Orchestra - "Imperfect Sea" at Fopp with a Love2Shop code.
Fopp is interesting...a sublet of HMV, a cosy little shop that are paid to shift stock the same way HMV in Oxford were in 2006 (they don't accept demos, but the odd CD to a member of staff is fine).
Next time I visit OX4, then, it might not be the dreaded more-than-you-can-eat, but a visit to The Old Fire Station Art Shop, and a always casual taking in of the sights left to see on this beautiful part of the Earth. Just think, it is only a tiny section of the world, at a specific point in time, a coming together. For a moment, life is transcended by the goodness of love, of living, of breathing...and most of all, of belonging.