Steamroller Land! (Blog 387)

Today I went with my dad to a steam fair! Because he brought along his mini steam engine in his van, we got there before the event started and for free. Getting before everyone else wasn’t anything to be excited about though, as nothing really was going on, and later on in the day I found nothing really happened either. I mean you could look at the steam rollers of various sizes, and I assume even more later on they would be moving, but come on… moving steam rollers… Is that anything for a 35 year old to be excited about? Not really. I was hoping my brother’s family would be turning up, but he’s ‘getting ready for an upcoming holiday’. Either that or the thought of vehicles travelling maybe 2 miles per hour at best sounds boring to him, too. Maybe you could train a dog to hold the steering wheel? That would cheer me up. I’m just saying that because dogs can learn to drive! I also squeezed my bike in the van so I could go home any time I wanted, which turned out to be a very smart move. I could have cycled to the place as well, but of course I would likely get lost. I sure did on the way home obviously, but only for about 10 minutes. Then I was fine.

Anyway, back in the fair! Again before it was truly open, my dad pointed to a large vehicle and said ‘ah, this one is for towing tanks!!’ like he knew that all along and was super smart. However, there was a sign next to it, explaining what is was used for and my dad had been to the same fair the day before. Let’s be real, he only found out that fact yesterday. Pretty much non stop, my dad gave me a huge, possibly planned lecture on pretty much everything we saw. I wasn’t listening to it, so I couldn’t describe its quality, I couldn’t even say for sure if there were repetitions, crazy lies, or made up stories about me in there, but I do know he was super into it. My dad said to me ‘it’s a shame we can’t take pictures because you didn’t bring your mobile phone…’ But he brought HIS phone! He really does say some dumb things. Just yesterday he showed me a number that had come up on his mobile, and he asked me what it was. It was the home phone number. You have to wonder what’s going on in his head.

Soon after he stopped talking to me, my dad gave a lecture to someone else. Again, I don’t really know what it was about, instead I was looking at the steam rollers and thinking to myself ‘wouldn’t it be cool if they were twice as big. THEN I’d be impressed. My dad’s steam engine was small, the other’s were relatively big, but where do you go from there. Nowhere. I was also imagining my dad’s mini roller zooming at 100 mph. You can’t deny that’s a funny image. Still, it shows how bored I was. Luckily it wasn’t TOO long before a lemonade stand opened. £3 for a cup of lemonade? That does sound high end. No, I was tricked. That’s what spending so much time with annoying people does to you. You tune out, can’t think properly and pretty much agree to anything. Shortly after that, I bought a classic 99 ice cream, but renamed to a ‘bunny’ ice cream, I’m assuming because the two chocolate flakes pointing in opposite directions looked at least a bit like rabbit ears. Having said that, if the seller told me it was made from rabbits, I would have believed him, in that state. :S

As I’m typing and thinking clearer I’m sure no bunnies were in it, but the seller missed an opportunity and didn’t call the strawberry sauce ‘rabbit blood’. Why not go the whole way? Oh of course, it’s too dark. Or is it? Black pudding is made from blood, and apparently it’s very nice! So there you go. Or do you?? Maybe I’m still not fully recovered with the blood idea, actually it sounds disturbing, but I’m getting there, I think. I dunno. After that, my dad gave SOMEONE ELSE a lecture. Someone later tried to give him a lecture in return, but my dad interrupted and quickly started a new one. The prior writing pretty much summed the 2 and a half hours or so of the day out neatly. So yeah, I soon got bored and said I’d be cycling home. My bike was a bit mangled when bundled in the van, but my dad soon unmangled it. He just explained how the handles were twisted too much. Simple. Concise. All that was needed. I appreciate how he didn’t give a speech on the history of bicycles and how motorbikes, etc. followed, which I suppose is something. As explained I got a tiny bit lost, but after that? Swish. And with mixed feelings… bye!