Today is Christmas Day, my birthday and all of those special days rolled into one. Not just for me but for a lot of people in Nottingham for today is the opening day of the world famous Goose Fair. The biggest thing for me isn't the rides or the sideshows (especially as they don't have sideshows anymore) but one particular food stall. I met my dad after work at the (the) mushy pea stall for our first sampling of this local delight. It's such a good thing that this stall is still there in its usual place because without it Goose Fair would not be the same. Mushy peas are a symbol of the fair and there are a lot of outlets for this strange delicacy but the rest of them are brazenly advertising tinned peas and using squirty bottles of mint sauce, I assume that these stalls cater for the people who don't really know what they're doing. The (the) stall is for people from Nottingham who look forward to this time of year in the same way that people who live in seaside towns know which fish and shops to use rather than the crap ones the holiday makers go to because they'll eat any old shit.
It is a shame that Nottingham's love of mushy peas is now confined to the five days a year of Goose Fair, having lost two stalls selling this local delight in Victoria Centre. The jacket potato stall in the city centre offers a cup of peas with squirty mint sauce which is acceptable but not a patch on what we could have. They taste okay but not what Nottingham needs which is a stall selling hot peas and mint sauce in a bowl on the counter. On the other hand maybe this is what makes Goose Fair, already a highlight of Nottingham's calender, extra special. If we have to wait a whole year between our last helping of mushy peas and our first then the anticipation builds up. On the tram to the fair there was a feeling of excitement in the air as we approached the forest tram stop and people poured out and this is what Christmas is like when you're a child. That feeling dissolves with age until you get to the point where you couldn't give a toss about Christmas but when you're a child it is all about the build up. Thankfully it doesn't happen with Goose Fair which is what prompted an idea for a song last year that now languishes on a piece of paper in my box of abandoned ideas. I was having a conversation on the tram with Mandi (who loves Christmas far more than a person her age should) last December and as the tram passed the forest I turned the subject onto Goose Fair somehow and commented that Goose Fair is better because you don't get mushy peas at Christmas. There and then on the tram I took out my pad and pen and wrote Christmas is okay, but Goose Fair is better, because you don't (pause) get mushy peas at Christmas. Brilliant idea for a song that any Nottingham songwriter is welcome to expand on.
There's a Facebook group dedicated to the (the) mushy pea stall which you can join here.
The Sunday Alternative Podcast #57 is available from here.
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September housekeeping
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