Wednesday 29 July 2015

Penrith of Eden

In the centre of the world there is a theatre where all the colour of behaviour explodes. I could expect different reactions from readers, from it makes sense to words are misspelt, from meh to I saw what you did there, Mr Dustjacket, and it is/is not clever.

My sentence was deliberate to prove a point. If one puts in the effort there is a reward, and this is true of messing around with words[1] as it is to promoting towns and businesses. And interesting towns and businesses need promoting to provide an alternative to bland, generic high streets and retail destinations.

Penrith is a destination. I've passed it so many times without stopping[2], but on the way back from Wickerman Festival we decided to call in. The rain was falling, we had no idea what was in Penrith, but there must be at least lunch.

There was, in a small cafe overlooking the corn exchange, soup and a refreshing cup of coffee. Highly recommended if you can find it[3]. Along Penrith's streets and roads were lots of flowers and pavement furniture (provided by Greening Penrith, though I wonder if they'd also be Penrith In Bloom). The independent retailers matched this with their own guide to cafes and shops, helping you enjoy their town even in the rain.

Of all the shops I found two bookshops. Hedgehog Books serves up new books and scones, with quite a lot of recommendations and signed first edition. Beckside Books also had signed first editions, though of the older, secondhand variety. Both are worth checking out, just like Penrith as a whole.

And if you're staying the night and go to the cinema, would you tell me about it?

Notes
1- What are you doing in that boat, Ratty? Just messing about, also stop calling me ratty, I'm quite happy most of the time.
2- In my head it might have been full of tigers, like those old maps that show land masses with dragons and seas full of kracken-like seamonsters.
3- The cafe would please all those who spell their sins syns.

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