To buy a fat pig

A hot day in August and I'm still enjoying the sights and sounds of my new environment. The weekly market always provides a bit of local colour and plenty to meditate on...

 

A few persistent stallholders remain. The rest of the stalls are packed up on trucks, the last vestiges of another successful market day piled into the back and the doors slammed shut. “Strawberries, 3 for 2 quid” yells the desperate man on the greengrocery stall. The day has turned warm and sultry. The produce has been standing in the hot sun for hours now and nothing left will survive – best to sell it now at any price.

 

A woman walks past me with a laden shopping bag -  bag for life – and a broom. She is hot and dishevelled but her day’s shopping is done and she is ready to go home for a well-deserved pot of tea. A few women in pretty cotton dresses still linger around the remaining stalls, looking for bargains and enjoying the last of a fine day out. Market day! An old-fashioned mid-week treat. Half past two on this warm afternoon. The clock chimes prettily on the old clock tower in market square as it has done for centuries. The town relaxes again after another busy day and the stall holders count their takings, swelled by the crowds of eager tourists at this time of year.

 

The scene is reminiscent of a Hardy novel. Women drag heavy shopping bags; men loiter on the hot, dusty pavement outside the White Lion, trying to quench their thirst after the exertions of the day. Only the livestock are missing from this familiar scene.

 

“To market, to market, to buy a fat pig...” No pigs on offer today except ready sliced and packaged on the butcher’s stall. But the market stall reflects the ongoing commerce which is still at the heart of this noisy market town – the buying and selling of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, organic produce and household necessities, from new watch straps to garden twine. No fat pigs but plenty to eat. It seems that every alternate establishment along the busy High Street is offering something to eat or drink. Every cafe table is full, the occupants sitting over their beef stew, fanning themselves in the heat or seeking a spot of shade in the garden of the public house.

 

“Home again, home again, jiggety gig” goes the rhyme. The wheels turn and it will soon be Wednesday again: time to relive yet another market day in the life cycle of this friendly, easy-going community. For now, everyone is content to go home, the stallholders to gather up their belongings, stack their trestle tables, empty pallets and leftover stock and the shoppers to take their produce home, fill their larders and gloat over the pennies they saved once again. Everyone is happy. The stallholders know they got a good price and the shoppers are equally certain of their good fortune. Win-win.

 

And the pig? The pig slips greasily through the crowd to escape for another week, unscathed. It was not always so lucky in times past.