St Peter’s Square, Saturday 5 July 2008. Gŵyl Rhuthun/Ruthin Festival's culmination, as sponsored again by Tesco ® (but only proud to support it in English, it seems). Nicely closed to traffic from 12 noon. Family entertainment.
During the afternoon there was the distinct fetor of cooking meats in the air, that made the smell usually pumped out in our larger towns by Subway seem like a perfumed garden. During the evening, that smell turned to the usual all-pervading one of beer, as if a thousand slop trays were simultaneously poured out over the Square.
Not that anyone minded either of these sensations or probably even noticed. For, against the odds, the rain (largely) held off. Unlike at 5 a.m. the following day as I type this.
One of the interesting things every year about Top of Town is meeting neighbours whom outside Christmas you normally see quite sober, trying to have a conversation with you as if they were *still* sober. Both they and you knew differently. The next time you meet you both skirt around the subject as if it didn’t really happen. And after Mae Hen Wlad fy Nhadau at a little after 8 p.m… more beer on the Square. All innocent fun unless you find the noise that permeates every corner of the town as intrusive as the blasts and explosions during the fireworks now inevitable during every wedding at Castell Rhuthun Castle.
What does shock, though, is the number of seemingly under age drinkers who take advantage of the party atmosphere to ‘enjoy’ a few drinks. They should all be in doing teenagery things, like watching the finale of Dr Who or on their Wiis and Play Stations. Instead, the path from Prior Street to the cloisters of St Peter’s church & church gates seems littered with even more than the usual disorderly crew of terribly young drinkers and smokers, to add to those youngsters on the Square itself.
During the afternoon there was the distinct fetor of cooking meats in the air, that made the smell usually pumped out in our larger towns by Subway seem like a perfumed garden. During the evening, that smell turned to the usual all-pervading one of beer, as if a thousand slop trays were simultaneously poured out over the Square.
Not that anyone minded either of these sensations or probably even noticed. For, against the odds, the rain (largely) held off. Unlike at 5 a.m. the following day as I type this.
One of the interesting things every year about Top of Town is meeting neighbours whom outside Christmas you normally see quite sober, trying to have a conversation with you as if they were *still* sober. Both they and you knew differently. The next time you meet you both skirt around the subject as if it didn’t really happen. And after Mae Hen Wlad fy Nhadau at a little after 8 p.m… more beer on the Square. All innocent fun unless you find the noise that permeates every corner of the town as intrusive as the blasts and explosions during the fireworks now inevitable during every wedding at Castell Rhuthun Castle.What does shock, though, is the number of seemingly under age drinkers who take advantage of the party atmosphere to ‘enjoy’ a few drinks. They should all be in doing teenagery things, like watching the finale of Dr Who or on their Wiis and Play Stations. Instead, the path from Prior Street to the cloisters of St Peter’s church & church gates seems littered with even more than the usual disorderly crew of terribly young drinkers and smokers, to add to those youngsters on the Square itself.
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