Favourite Shirts

Those familiar with the Lake District may recognise this location - the centre of Bowness-on-Windermere. Normally I’d avoid it like the plague in the summer, but schools only broke up today and the M6 has been closed for most of the day, so I reckoned there might be a chance of getting in and out this afternoon without having to dodge hordes of tourists!
And thus it proved to be. Drove straight in and even got a 1hour (more than ample for my needs) parking space just up from where I took the photo. And the reason for the visit? To visit Joe Brown’s excellent shop and buy some new shirts. I like their designs and the fit is good. I used to have to travel over the Pennines to Meadowhall, Sheffield to visit their store. I could have shopped online but I like to try things on before I buy, rather than have the hassle of sending things back if they don’t fit. So it was both surprising - and very pleasing - when, two years ago, they opened the first store outside Sheffield - in Bowness of all places!
I knew there was a sale on, but didn’t know how much stock they would have left. As it happened, quite a lot, and I managed to find a white (with a hint of colour on the collar) shirt that I needed (the old one was - quite literally - frayed around the edges and had been consigned to the bin) and a rather nice T-shirt to replace one that was more like wearing a small marquee than a T-shirt when I tried it on the other week.
I also used to work in the building on the left, back in the day. It wasn’t an art gallery then, but a branch of Barclays Bank and I spent many weeks working there off and on between 1990 and 2000. Always a mad busy branch in the summer and very quiet in the winter. The only trace of Barclays now is an ATM halfway up the hill!
The other big change is that when I worked there, you could look out at the majestic horse chestnut tree that had stood on the roundabout for nearly 100 years. Until it was chopped down - without warning - overnight in 2018. The official reason was “Health & Safety” due to the danger of branches falling on cars and pedestrians. The alternative reason was that wagons couldn’t negotiate the roundabout because of the tree - which caused traffic jams and near collisions - whereas they could cut over a white painted circle.
Easier to cut the tree down than spend money on maintaining and pruning it regularly perhaps…?