And so to Chelmsford. Until two weeks ago I worked there, but now my visits will be infrequent as there are other large towns nearer to me. Today, though, my car was in for MOT and service in Hatfield Peverel not far from Chelmsford and it made sense to carry on for shopping and other stuff.
I'm not a great lover of piped music (except bagpipes, of course). I don't have any choice over what's played and often it's far too loud to ignore and, moreover, rubbish. I remember Christmas shopping and being driven from three stores in succession by good impressions of scraping a saucepan at ear-splitting volume. Today, though, it was quite discreet, not too loud. In Wilkinson's a bad singer was offering me something beautifeeyul. Only in the American South would natural pronunciation be anything like this, and this wasn't a Dixie accent. A good singer can extend a sound without turning one syllable into three.
On for a pub lunch (The Ship - recommended). Here the singer had quite a good voice and I became a bit puzzled trying to follow the words of the song. I think she was either telling me to "get a haircut" (she would not be alone in this advice, but I resent it: it suggests the army, and from what sounded like a young woman, a bottle blonde dressing up as a Sergeant-major and yelling orders at me (no thanks); or she was requesting, "get a handcuff". Puzzling if it was the latter, as I'd think one handcuff would be useless - a bit like advertising "Breast enlargement - two for the price of one!" At any rate, a less discouraging message than "get a haircut".
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