Barber's Pole.

On Wednesday, a local notary will be taking a heritage walk around Penicuik explaining the history of the town as he goes. Today and tomorrow, he’s doing practice runs with most of his effort going into reducing the content to fit the time available. On that score, today was a failure even though one notable citizen (the town crier) had been forced to take a vow of silence.
 
I had initially thought that I might be the only member of his audience, but it ended up with there being fourteen of us; and very interesting it was, even though we ventured no more than a few hundred yards from our starting point outside the Cowan Institute, aka the town hall.
 
I learnt a lot during the three hour ramble about the local history and the precise nature of where the old landmarks used to be; unfortunately, my poor brain couldn’t handle the data overload and so, in general, each new fact was forgotten before the succeeding one put in an appearance. However, I will remember that this familiar cyclist friendly café used to be a barber’s shop and that the pole sticking out at a jaunty angle above the door used to be the red and white striped totem of the profession.