My Second Experience at Canterbury Fayre

by Merewyn the Meke

The second time I went to Canterbury Fayre, my boyfriend and I took the bus from SFU to Gore Street in garb again. If I had had more sense, I probably would have stayed at home, because I had an inner ear infection. It didn’t hurt, but I had absolutely no sense of balance. I remembered how much fun I had had the year before, though, and I was determined not to miss out.

When we arrived at the church, I went once more to the Welsh and tinker cake booth to be put to work by Susan the Opaque. That worked out alright, because I could orient myself into an upright position by leaning against the table. When I was trying to mingle, however, I had to cling to something to keep myself from listing dangerously to the left. I spent a lot of time walking from booth to booth, using the wall to keep on track, or hanging onto the aforementioned boyfriend. I remember someone asking me if I had lost a contact lens, because it looked so strange. I still had fun, though.

On Saturday evening, we went to the Mediaeval Inn, like we had the year before. When we went to get into the booth, my boyfriend handed me his jacket and asked me to take it into the booth with me. I took it and pulled it up the long bench toward me and left it beside myself. To my amazement, he began yelling at me.

“My beer! My beer! You’re spilling my beer!” he cried.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

He reached into the booth and picked up the jacket, showing me what was in his pocket. “How stupid can you be?” he said. “I have an open beer in my pocket. You spilled it.”

“Well, who brings an open beer into a restaurant?” I said, as I realized that I had spilled the stuff all over my skirt. This had the net effect of making me smell like I had been drinking heavily. Combined with my lack of balance, it must have been charming. About all I could do about it was laugh as I dropped cutlery, fell under the table trying to retrieve it and bashed my head on the way back up. Whenever I think of Canterbury Fayre, I remember the year that I had that ear infection and gave everyone the impression I’d been drinking. I shouldn’t have gone, but I was bored to tears at home and overall, the adventure was quite a lot of fun.

Just as a post-script, I will add that the church changed the theme of their craft sale to Dickensian the next year and our group’s participation ended. My relationship with that fellow didn’t last. (What a surprise!) He moved to Alberta and became an accountant.