Spitall was where it was all at yesterday on the one nice day we have had sandwiched between what feels like weeks of rain. It has poured since we left dry old Hutton and certainly can no longer boast about living in the driest part of the UK. Anyhow Spitall was all zephyrs, sun and only a light fleece necessary. It was the first day of the Spitall Festival-a weekend of riotous fun including a Continental Market. Apart from the German Lager,Polish pastries, 87 varieties of saucisson and French cheeses sold by a German hot foot off the Newcastle Ferry the emphasis was on carved animals from the presentable via the kitsch to the grotesque. Not selling like hot cakes-although the hot cakes were, despite being Fair Trade and prolific-if you could avoid Spitall's notorious dog droppings you were likely to be entangled with wooden ducks and the odd Iguana or Monitor Lizard-and the even odder giraffe which hard not clearly been anywhere near Africa. I have seen this lot before-in the Christmas Market at La Defense in Paris. They were not selling there either so Spitall may have been something of a Derniere Chance Salon.

If you could tear yourself away from this wooden Disneyland sur Spit you had the beach as the alternative attraction. Nicer than usual as the dog crap was mostly covered up by the flotsam and jetsam brought down the Tweed by the recent floods. So mild was it that some people were nearly swimming despite the rather dirty looking foam fed by silt from the Berwickshire rivers-a Brown Flag beach on this occasion-being hurled onto the strand by some impressive rollers. Good for surfing. But you would need your wellies.

Labels: Carved animals, Continental Market, Spitall

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