Glastonbury and Cubanos

As the story has been told to me - and by different people - in the sixties, you could buy a house in Hebden Bridge for £50, which resulted in a huge influx of what might be broadly called hippies. Wikipedia doesn't back up this story, saying only that "During the 1970s and 1980s the town saw an influx of artists, writers, photographers, musicians, alternative practitioners, teachers, Green and New Age activists." (I love how teachers are lumped in there!)

Either way, a couple of generations down the line, Hebden Bridge is a wonderful town to visit: the Trades Hall is excellent for gigs and there is a lovely old cinema, as well as lots of pubs and restaurants, plus some beautiful old buildings and the canal. But it retains an indisputable hippy vibe.

I mention this because today we went into the town of Glastonbury, which one could imagine having a similar history to Hebden Bridge, if, instead of hippies, the town had been repopulated with pagans. The high street contains perhaps a dozen shops selling crystals, pagan idols, candles, and so on, as well as people wandering about in 'witchy' clothing.

After some breakfast at a pavement table outside a small café, we took a bemused wander around the shops, toyed with a walk around the old Abbey - £11 each to get in: no thanks! - and decided that we had exhausted what pleasures the town had to offer.

Next on our schedule was a visit to see our old Twitter friend, Jann, who has recently given up his job to run a food van. This, I understand, was inspired by a film called 'Chef', right down to the actual food he serves: Cuban sandwiches.

We drove from Glastonbury through some winding lanes beneath the Tor until we found Jann, with his Cubano Bus, at Middlewick Farm Shop, which is where he sets up on Saturdays. He was relaxed and chatty as he fixed us our sandwiches, telling us about his lifestyle change. We sat and ate in the sun and the sandwiches were so good that I actually bought an extra one to eat later on!