Sweeps Day 1

Just back from the first day of Rochester's Sweep's Festival, and first time I've done it in a chair (I opted out last year as I was three days post surgery). The crowds were surprisingly good about getting out of the way of the chair - once they'd noticed me! Of course it was Rochester, so cobbles everywhere, and my back is letting me know it isn't happy with me.

Slight shortage of the usual suspects, bumped into my friend Ray in the beer tent at the Gordon Hotel, but that was it for today, when we've had as many as a dozen in the group in the past, though we had a pleasant chat with a couple of the bell ringing crowd he knew. Should be more people out tomorrow hopefully. Caught the end of Green Diesel's set in the Gordon as I arrived, female fiddler/vocalist backed by four guys on guitar, ukelele etc, then went up to the Castle Gardens to see most of their second set. 'Most' as by the time we'd queued for the cash machine (all three machines at Asda had been flat out of cash when I tried earlier), then I'd pushed most of the way around the castle to get to the accessible gate, they'd already started. Worth a listen.

Somewhat annoyed that Medway have done their usual thing and shut down the disabled parking by the Castle to put stalls on, though not to the point of not buying a pasty from one...

And the weather held, which after Tuesday's hail showers is an relief. It did go ominously grey at five o'clock as the afternoon session was winding down, but now it's back to sunny again. We've done the evening session as well in the past, but that needs a reasonable number of you, so I headed across to the station to grab a taxi home - the new station is much more convenient for that than the old one, though I'm now forced to pay for taxis both ways, when in the past I'd have walked at least one way.