Summer Archives -

August 2018’s inaugural Meraki Christmas Festival was a huge success, selling over 4,000 glasses of mulled wine, 8,000 jars of locally produced cranberry sauce and 1,400 half-dozen packets of Redbournbury Mill‘s mince pies.

To avoid the confined space of the walled, sheltered, easy-to-reach, right-in-the-town-centre Vintry Gardens, and the inconvenience associated with the cold winter weather, St Albans District Council made the inspired decision to not only move the location of this year’s Christmas Market but to also hold the festive fair at a more user-friendly time of year during the summer holidays.

Ivor P Folio, council member for festive markets, said: “I’m going to see my brother, Keith, in Florida in December so I thought I’d get the whole inconvenient Christmas Market thing out of the way nice and early in August this year. You know how tricky it is when you’re trying to pack flowery holiday shirts and fritter away council tax-payers’ money all at the same time.”

A wide range of stall-holders deemed the Merry-AKI (Albans’ Kristmas In-summer) festival a resounding winner:

Indoor comfy footwear retailers ‘All Saints’n’Slippers’ said: “Christmas is our busiest period so it’s great to get this event out of the way early. To be honest, we didn’t actually sell that many pairs, but we think shoppers were impressed with our quality as people near us could be heard commenting ‘Ooh, they’ve worn well, haven’t they’, which was nice.”

From her gazebo selling pirate eye-wear, stall-holder Gabrielle thought she could make a good profit at the festival if it ran for longer: ‘Give me just a little more time’, she could be heard murmuring to herself.

Sales were patchy for some stall holders

The motorcycle spare-parts tent seemed a little out of place, but from beneath a Christmassy banner offering ‘10CC’s Dreadlock Festival Holiday Deals’, sales assistants were very happy to attend. “We’ve somewhat mixed views on summer sports so to be here instead is light relief; we don’t like cricket, oh no.”

The travel advisor selling sunset tours to a secret location (near a tree by a river, there’s a hole in the ground, apparently) was a fan of the switch to summer and the longer evenings. “I won’t let the sun go down on me,” claimed Mr Kershaw, at the same time denying that he was about to start selling NASA memorabilia at his permanent Christopher Place shop, SpaceNK.

Electrical retailers Dave More and Suzie Cheeba thought the summer event would get better and better every year, stating: “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” To labour the point, they added that this year’s event was ‘Way beyond’ their expectations and that its evolution was ‘Part of the process’ and that everyone should ‘Enjoy the ride’ and that those who were quick to complain were too ‘Trigger hippie’. They would have commented further but a customer called Mr Wikipedia interrupted.

A special Christmas auction was a huge success at the Merry-AKI. Although the most anticipated lot, a real-life Elf On The Shelf, was unavailable at short notice, the organisers sourced a last-minute replacement and there was furious bidding amongst men in their 40s for the right to have Pixie Lott 3A in their homes for 24 hours. Dad of six (or seven, he wasn’t sure), Brandon from Fleetville said: “I’ve had eight pints of Farr Brew and the missus is asleep in the circus tent, so I’ve re-mortgaged the house to bid for Lott 3A.”

The successful Merry-AKI Christmas event ran over three days. Unfortunately, it only being mid-August and his red outfit still at the cleaners, Santa couldn’t attend. However, he did send his stunt-double, Noah. Fittingly, Noah arrived in a downpour of biblical proportions. We were informed that Noah was Santa’s stand-in, but we are now wondering if they are one and the same person. After all, you never actually see Santa and Noah in the same room, so I guess it’s plausible…

We sought clarification from Merry-AKI organisers about Noah’s lookalike status but a spokesman, Moses, refuted our hypothesis, claiming we’d got confused with the Council’s other summer outdoor event, ‘Larks in the Ark.’

For many, the festive highlight was the Silent-Night disco where Christmas revellers could shake their jingle bells, getting them to ding-dong merrily on high whilst wearing warming ear-muffs.

AL3 thought it was a stroke of sheer genius to hold a giant game of ‘Ghost Bus’, where festival-goers had to search for hours for a mysterious pre-paid bus to transport them to or from the seasonal extravaganza. The Polar (National) Express was a resounding success as a way of keeping little ones entertained although, at £8 per ticket (excluding bus ride), it was a tad expensive.

Packed with tinsel, roasted chestnuts and festive good cheer, Merry-AKI was lots of fun. AL3 is looking forward to the outdoor summer event that the same organisers are holding at Westminster Lodge this December. We’re camping for the full 23 days and will be packing swimming trunks for the giant water-slide and looking forward to picnics in the sunshine and relaxing outdoor massages.

Fish are jumpin’ and the grass verges are high.

Here’s our guide to some of the exciting things that will be happening in St Albans over the next couple of months plus a few that we’d like to see in the not too distant future.

The City & District council have spent most of the entertainment budget on fly-posting the whole area with their most informative publication ‘Community News – Summer in the City’ leaflet.

Personally, I’m intrigued at the mention of the new full colour 3D illustrated St Albans City Centre map and guide, only 2 quid from the Tourist Information Centre (no we don’t get commission).

Mind you, I’ll be first in the queue for a refund if a scale model of the clock tower doesn’t pop up and poke me in the eye when I unfold the map but they do say ‘3D’ so surely I won’t be disappointed?

To be fair though, as long as it’s got the beach volleyball court location clearly marked, (presumably near the ‘bottom’ end of the park) it’ll be the best £2 I spend all summer.

There’ll be the usual giant puppets at the Alban Weekend and the equally scary Morris men will be banging their short sticks against each other as they dance.

Which reminds us, the International Organ festival will soon be upon us too. Although seeing it advertised in the leaflet with a picture of altar boys made us wonder if someone’s got the wrong end of the stick?

The Verulamium museum is holding numerous events this summer among them are a few that we would have been proud to have thought of ourselves.

Just for the kids, there’s the ‘Make your own Roman Fridge Magnet’ sessions.

WTF?!

Now we’ll give the Romans credit for central heating and concrete but we at AL3 know for a ‘fact’ that refrigerators were invented in 1066 by Korean ice cream van driver Mr Sam Sung.

There’s also a talk entitled “The Wicked Lady”.
Who was she? What naughty things did she do? What happened to her?”

Well (SPOILER ALERT), we can reveal that she is a 54 year old woman from Sandridge who shoplifted all over the county (a strange penchant for HDMI cables and Lego sets), is banned from numerous shops in the area and has been given a 2 week suspended sentence.

Herts Ad court report, once again, we thank you.

Coincidentally, there are ‘mock’ trials being held at the Crown Court as part of the Magna Carta 800th anniversary.

Perhaps the town planners who are responsible for the Premier Inn and Blue and Red bank in St Peters Street could be put in the dock for crimes against the City’s architecture?

Now, I expect you all put hands in pockets to help bring to life St. Albans very own boutique cinema and (KERCHING!) there it is. The Odyssey.

No longer will Snorbenites need to traipse into Londinium to see such Art House classics like MOOMINS ON THE RIVIERA (book now for this weekend’s matinee and ‘no’ we don’t get commission).

Anyway, the council will soon be asking the good people of the city for a couple of million towards the £8m needed to turn the old town hall building into a replica of the Obama’s current residence. Apparently it will be a museum and at that price we can only imagine what events they will hold there for the kids when it’s open. Make your own Roman thermo-nuclear reactor?

Finally, here are three things that may, or may not, be in the minds of the council.

Yes, they may sound ridiculous but just promise to remember where you heard it first and we promise not to say “we told you so”.

They aren’t going to pedestrianise the High Street but plans are afoot for a trolley bus system from the Abbey Station up the hill. It’s still being decided on where the trolley bus will terminate but the Peahen is our bet.

This will coincide with the new twin ice rinks planned for the former site of the gasometers down by the retail park. Our source at the council told us “The last thing anyone wants to do after two hours of acting like Torville or Dean is to schlep back up Holywell Hill into town so we’ll try and have the trolley bus system in place in time for the opening”.

In the unlikely event that the tram and skating options don’t work out, there’s also a compromise contingency plan involving turning Holywell Hill into a giant waterslide but this is so ridiculous we won’t go into any detail here.

Enjoy the sun (if the grass verges aren’t blocking it out) and remember –

If you build it, they will come.

Category: Summer

Christmas in August

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy