The town feels different on festival days. Streets that are usually quiet stretch alive with colour and sound. It’s Eat festival and food stalls line the high street, their scents tumbling into one another — smoke, sugar, spice. I walk slowly, letting myself be carried by the tide of people.
At one stand I try oysters for the first time. Briny, cold, a taste of the sea that doesn’t sit with me. I laugh at my own grimace and move on, glad at least to have tried.
Not far along, I find the opposite of disappointment: a sausage roll, warm and rich with pork, rosemary, maple, and red pepper. I eat it sitting in the sun, each bite filling me more than the last. To follow, an iced butterscotch mochachino, sweet and heavy, like autumn folded into a glass.
Buskers take their places at street corners. Music threads itself through the crowd, a drifting soundtrack to laughter and chatter. For a while I just sit, listening, people-watching, the sunshine soft on my shoulders.
In a shop window, an embroidery sampler catches my eye. Neat rows of stitches, patient hands behind them. I think of someone special, how he would notice the craft in it, how he would smile at the small beauty of the work.
I buy loose leaf tea and a strainer, small comforts to carry home. Then, at a stall scattered with trinkets, I find a pair of black ghost earrings. Tiny, playful, a little spark of delight.
Later, I take the long way back. The afternoon light is low, the air turning crisp. My steps are slow, unhurried, as though the day itself is asking me not to end it too quickly.