INDY EXPOSURE Th e Fr o m e Fo s s i l
I
magine you’ve never been to Frome. But you’ve heard about it. A lot. People keep banging on about what a peaceful, friendly place it is. Then one day you say to yourself “Let’s tootle over and see what all the fuss is about. How about Sunday morning? There won’t be many people about: i’ll have a quiet firkle round”. You summon the ageing dog, jump in the car and bowl blithely through the leafy lanes. And there it is. Cripes! Call this peaceful? There’s nowhere to park, for a start. Barely even anywhere to walk. Everywhere you look, stretching away down to the market place and beyond, there are tables and stalls and gazebos and food vans and street food bars - and people. Hordes of them. The streets are crammed tighter than a gannet’s gullet with bright-eyed punters lugging bags and babies and pint glasses. Live music thumps from a marquee in front of the Oxfam shop. It’s bedlam. What the feck is going on? You spend half an hour finding somewhere to squeeze the car, put the dog on a lead and head off into the pullulating chaos that Frome has turned out to be. Progress is slow. Wherever you turn, your way is blocked by people queuing for samosas, or trying on hats, or sizing up ceramics, or riffling through old postcards, or sniffing handmade unguents. Although mostly they are just standing about yacking. At last you reach the market place, but beyond that is a narrow cobbly hill where the crush is even denser. The dog is knackered and so are you. You turn off and collapse gratefully onto a low wall. The stream of humanity rolls unstoppably on. Presently an old guy collapses next to you with a groan, dumping his bulging bags. They contain - as far as you can see - cheese, salami, rapeseed oil, a bottle of cider, a haunch of venison, a bag of pistachios and a belt made from recycled car tyres.
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THE LIST FROME
Fo s s i l o n F r o m e
“I only wanted a walk,” you say in a stunned voice. “I didn’t expect all this.” The old guy mops his brow, strokes the dog and explains about the Frome Indy and its manifold wonders. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he says. And you look round and think, yes – it’s utterly enchanting. I’ll come back next month. With a backpack.
