Farmers' market

[strange_complex]

I spent lunch-time wandering around the farmers' market in Gloucester Green with dyddgu. We were beset by delicious smells on all sides, and satisfied our appetites by munching heartily on roast-pork-and-stuffing (or crackling) rolls. I bought:

• Two venison burgers
• Goats cheese with coriander and chive.
• Honey and mustard dressing
• Balsamic vinegar dressing
• Honey and ginger marinade

(The lady on the dressings and marinades stall was very friendly, and expert at tempting me into trying more and more of her delicious concoctions).

After dyddgu had dashed off to get back to her job in the History Faculty library, I wandered around a little more, taking in the antiques / craft part of the market, and then, all of a sudden on a 'Retro Design' stall, saw the telephone that I have been waiting for all my life. For years, you see, I've wanted a plain black dial phone, just like my parents had until only about 10 years ago. They're the ones everyone had in the 60s and 70s, which looked like this, and I now know are technically referred to as the '700 series'. Until recently, though, I haven't been able to justify the expense for something which is really just a fashion statement. So it had remained a pipe dream, and I'd got along perfectly happily with my £9.99 silver touch-tone phone.

The phone I saw today, though, brought my long-thwarted desire flooding back ten-fold. This phone wasn't just the design I liked - it was also sitting there in two-tone bright purple and black! I hadn't even known such phones existed. Which is lucky, because I'm not sure I could have survived this long without owning one. However, it was £65, and besides not having that kind of cash on me, it also occurred to me on the basis of previous experience of the Gloucester Green antiques market that I might well be able to get it cheaper on Ebay. I came home, did a quick search, and guess what? I could. And the thoughtful sellers have even offered a complete explanation of how it is that such phones ever came to be.

Much happiness now ensues. And I return to preparing tomorrow's lectures.

Comments

[kantti.livejournal.com]

Ooh, what a wonderful phone. I've always coveted the old black ones, but in the end practicality won and I've got a digital text-messaging address-booking kitchen-sinking cordless one.

Perhaps I should put an extension line in somewhere, though.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm certainly keeping the old touch-tone one, as it's impossible to deal with most large companies over the phone these days without something their menu systems will respond to. I've had to do some extending anyway, so that my broadband connection reaches my computer, and that means I can plug the old phone into the extension cable for when I need it, while having the new one as my main phone.

('Old' and 'new' in this comment obviously meaning old and new to me, rather than in the literal chronological sense. Although then again, is the purple and black one I've just bought really 'old', given that it's obviously been put together fairly recently out of old bits? Cue Archimedes' ship debate and much confusion...)