I do worry about the town, in recent years it has become
much quieter. It was the last Saturday
of the month and I was hoping to see a bustling town, but sadly not. Where do the shoppers go if they don’t go to
Kendal? I’m mystified.
We parked in our usual pay and display spot near the Abbot Hall Art Gallery. There was a bit of a nightmare
with the pay and display machine as it wasn’t issuing tickets. On previous visits we did notice they were
very sharp with the parking tickets.
After an abortive attempt at phoning through to pay on the automatic
payment system we just got tickets at the art gallery car park and hoped the
parking attendant wouldn’t notice.
As ever there were plenty of charity shops, but they
contained nothing too exciting. We have
noticed that a number of vintage / antique shops have sprung up and I can’t
help but think they are regularly trawling the charity shops for goodies and
reselling them at a much higher mark up.
That said we did find a vintage shop called ‘Junk and Disorderly’ and had
a look. I spotted some old music
magazines called ‘Zig Zag’ from the 70s and 80s and pointed them out to Neil
for a laugh. What I didn’t expect was
that he bought all 28 of them. At least
they did give him a discount for buying in bulk. The magazines turned out to be a blessing in
disguise, not that they are worth a fortune, but because of Neil’s enforced digital
detox the Zig Zag’s kept him occupied during the holiday.
Kendal is full of empty shop fronts and I don’t expect them
to be filled that quickly given the lack of shoppers. Although it was nice to see the open air
market in full swing selling not only the usual stuff but also local crafts and
food. Make sure to check out the little yards
off the main street, as that’s where the interesting independent shops can be
found. How they keep going is anyone’s
guess.
Public information alert!
The only public toilets I could find were in Westmorland ShoppingCentre. Also the O2 signal is somewhat
patchy – mainly GPRS, with a smattering of 3G if you hang outside a high window
with the wind in the right direction.
Kendal – I do fret about you! You’re a nice northern town in need of TLC, interesting
shops and, before I forget, more shoppers.
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