A Brief Time in Fleetwood

Fran was crafting. Making cards until she left the room and I vaguely heard the unmistakeable sound of boxes, drawers and beds being flung about upstairs.

"I can't find something I was looking for," she said. I made the mistake of asking what it was - as if I'd know where it was for Heaven's sake! So I ended up offering to take her out to a craft shop to buy some more.

I picked the camera up and we headed to Fleetwood. It's been said that the trams will not be allowed down Fleetwood's streets after the close of the 2009 season so I thought I'd see if there were any trundling up and down as the chance of seeing them on the street if the reports are true will be just a touch zilch...

Fran went off towards the craft shop and I walked down towards the Ferry terminus. I took a photo of the Pharos lighthouse just in case Health & Safety decide the risk of it skipping sideways a few feet and bruising someone's shinbone cause it to be demolished...

I mean - it's downright dangerous right there in the middle of the road. A driver with his eyes shut might run in it...

In fact the road only goes round one side of it these days because they've made the tram tracks into a tram only road which looks quite attractive I have to say. There's even one of the old original Victorian tram shelters at the stop there, looking really rather repulsive with no glass, some of the window frames missing and the whole in need of a coat of paint, preferably in some brighter colour than the multiple shades of dull matt black-and-chewing-gum that is its present state.

The road is in fact shared by buses which can whiz up unexpectedly behind you when your ears are attuned to warn you of the clanking noise of metal wheels shrieking on a track... I wonder if Health & Safety are aware of this?

Down at the Ferry terminus the restored Standard tram 147, Michael Airey, was looking wonderfully nostalgic whilst a new driver received training in trolley turning. He completed the task without any mishap, but a fat lot of good it did him because it's a one-way loop on the track at that point so he had to turn the trolley again. They've fitted the restored tram with a beeper alarm that goes off as soon as the trolley leaves the wire. Now call me stupid if you like, but surely if the trolley came off the overhead wire the driver would know about it because the tram would lose its electric supply and stop??? Must be a Health & Safety thing...

Fran caught me up. The craft shop was shut. We ended up having to go to (ugh!) Freeport.

I'm never quite sure what it is that women see in such places. How many clothes can you look at for Heaven's sake? There should be a law that for every 2 clothes shops there should be a shop of interest to men. Let's see... there could be a toy shop, a musical instruments shop, a DVD/CD shop, a book shop, a shop with naked women in the window... The fact is that most retail villages, malls and wherever else shops tend to gather, only have one such shop to 100 clothes shops and the only place I've ever seen naked or semi-naked women in a shop window was round the Amsterdam red light district on a guided tour. And then my complaints that it must surely be rude to look and not buy were ignored by Fran who kept me safe by way of grasping my ear throughout the half hour we were there...

Anyway the craft shop at Freeport didn't have what she wanted either. I had a look at the marina at the boats that rich people buy and thereafter ignore and then went into the cheap book shop and bought three books for a fiver. I had no money with me so I had to wait for Fran to catch up with me and pay... heh heh heh...