Movin' on up: Loose is relocating

I didn't realise when I started my One Street strand that Gloucester Street is a start up street, and most successful businesses rapidly move out, uphill into the more bustling parts of town. The shop next door, an independent record store, moved up to the High Street earlier this year, and now Loose, which sells loose dried foods, has moved to Lansdown.

This must present a problem for my erstwhile landlady, who bought the two shops and flats above, several years ago, and revamped them. She must be constantly.loiking for new leaseholders. Gloucester Street is not a fashionable location. Only the Indian restaurants, a couple of takeaways, the pet shop, the hairdresser and the florist remain there year after year. And the Subway on the corner, which was once the scene of a siege. Things like that don't happen very often in Stroud.

What else? The morning was fine, the afternoon brought some torrential rain. The nursery children and I made Father's day cards. After work, I bumped into a friend in Wilko's and she encouraged me to keep looking in Stroud for an automatic umbrella: the type with a button-release. Eventually we found one in Millets, of all places. Only a fiver. The last one was bought in Italy, two weeks ago, for five Euros. (I left it behind because I prefer the magical-button-opening types).

We walked to Waitrose together. The roads looked flooded, with trenches of water at the sides. I continued my onward journey, safe under the canopy of my new capacious umbrella.

Roll on, summer!
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