Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Wood Green turns into Venice

Sunday just gone was a lovely lovely day. Wood Green High Road, officially the second busiest street in London behind Oxford Street (always the bridesmaid...), was deemed a car free day for the second time since cars existed, I think. And it was bloomin' ace.

Look at the joy on the faces of the people walking...not on the pavement.. but on the road instead!!

We had a stall, which meant for the first time since we opened, the council allowed us to advertise on the High Road, without threats of fines or legal action. So we made the most of it...

Our sales more than doubled on the day, and we introduced lots and lots of new people to the shop. The stall was in the perfect spot, so when anyone walked past and I yelled hello at them, and introduced the shop, the usual response was, 'but where is it ?'. All I had to do was point and all they had to do was turn around and there we are!!

It benefitted from being a dreamy sunny day, and I suspect this car free day was something of a political experiment into doing this a bit more often. Us traders love it, but us residents who live on the roads that the cars go down if they don't go down the High Road hate it. OOOOhh what a dilemma.
Not.

If I could, I'd make London resident car free all the time, forever. Isn't that what investing on good public transport should be all about? Think how lovely it would be? Then all those nimbys who moan about cars going down roads near where they live and putting the value down wouldn't have to, would they. And then cars wouldn't mean as much to all those people who invest their time driving around listening to Nelly with their windows down. And then maybe...just maybe Jeremy Clarkson wouldn't be on telly any more. Surely this is worth this brave step.

I know i'm a complete luddite, but there it is. Tube, bus, bike, legs, and I reckon we could probably invest in lots more buses and a brilliant monorail too. Imagine.

Anyway, going back to the thing that I was talking about (sorry about the rant), it was lovely, and my Mum came to see us as well. Here she is with lovely Freya.Lovely Mum and lovely Freya

Here's some more pictures of Car Free dayHere's an empty High Road.

Here are some stilt type people. They are not Geri Halliwell and her personal trainers.

I would like to apologise to Kate and Georgia, who I photographed looking al thumbs up and stuff. My camera packed up and failed to download your photo. Come along to the shop and i'll take more lovely pics.

I haven't put music on this blog for blimmin ages, but this is too good to ignore

Yeti- never lose your sense of wonder
They have an album called the Legend of Yeti Gonzales. I have it and it's a good thing.

Big Green Wednesday tomorrow.

1 comment:

  1. They closed Stert Street for an hour last year for a parade, and for some reason the parade was late. It was fabulous. Sunny day, we had the door open, and the entire atmosphere was wonderful. People walking in the road, more relaxed - and yes, more visitors to the shop.

    Unfortunately Stert Street is the only road you can go down to cross the river, so it's a critical route, and the chances of them ever closing it again are zero...

    Nice post guys - hope things are continuing to go well...

    ReplyDelete