Grand Old Day

It was the Grand Old Day out in St Paul (no 's') today, the capital (-tol) of Minnesota, should you have a wish to know.

With immaculate timing they had closed the main thorough-fare into the city for bridge maintenance (taking it all rather more seriously now). We found it using Brownian Motion as the GPS kept trying to send us round in circles and refused to co-operate. She seldom listens.

It was an incredibley long walk along the street of music, stalls and food - 30 blocks it says on the web-site, which I'm thinking is about 60 Olympic-sized swimming pools, or several thousand double-decker buses in length.

There was lots of music, which we could hear, but not see, due to the presence of a small person who due to her inferior age and purchasing power was not allowed within sniffing distance of anywhere serving alchohol.

Loads of food to eat. I admit I was tempted by the battered and deep-fried cheese-curds, but only momentarily once bridgjo had slapped me around the face a couple of times. In return, I almost persuaded him to ask the friendly boys on the Lavender (with a capital/tol 'L') stand for a rather pretty bag of lavender they were handing out....I stopped him before he got too close, and made some really nice mates.

Interesting street though - lovely old (huge) houses interspersed with houses converted to shops. We'd go there more often if only St Paul wasn't such a hike. Lots of Nepalese restos there too - so maybe we can share the driving and go in one evening.