Today we had a quick walk round Hull Fair, which for those of you who may not have your geographical maps centred on the city and port of Hull in the UK, is one of the largest traveling fairs in Europe (and I'm sure isn't necessarily known as "Hull Fair" when it travels somewhere else, but I only know it as Hull Fair - so Hull Fair I shall continue to refer to it as) and has been going for over 700 years.
Hull Fair is manic and noisy and absolutely jam packed with people trying scary rides, eating everything, and spending money. It's ace.
I've been trying to remember how, if at all, the fair has changed since I first went. The fair is still in the same location, there is possibly a greater selection of food vendors nowadays, you can get all kinds of food from german sausages to noodles, whilst all I can remember from my first visits is Bob Carvers (local chip shop - when visiting t'fair you have to get patty, peas and chips from Bob Carvers, it's the law), but apart from that I can't immediately see a great deal of difference, you've still got the dodgems, helter skelter, carousel, ghost house, hook a duck (£3 for hook a duck today!?! I know with the current foreign exchange non-UK readers will think that £3 is quite reasonable, but no, it's not) and various games where you can win an awesome prize, but that never seems to quite happen.
There's possibly less fortune tellers, I seem to remember there being perhaps half a dozen fortune tellers when I was little, and I could only see one today, but apart from that there didn't seem to be a huge amount of difference.
Perhaps that's part of the fun of the fair, that it is semi-traditional and the things that you enjoyed when you were young are still there now. I perhaps spend a little more time analysing the prices of the various goods at the fair (do I go to this stall for eight doughnuts for £2, or this one for five for £1 - bearing in mind that the latter, whilst appearing a better option, might not apply sufficient sugar to the aforementioned fried dough). And I couldn't leave without buying a bag of Wright's Brandy Snap (although that also carried a eye-watering price tag of £2.60 a bag, I remember when it would have been a quid at the right stall!)
At any rate, it was nice to have a walkaround, and there's every chance I'll stop by again sometime over the next week before the fair moves on.
Are you a fan of fairs?
