The details are still a bit sketchy at the moment, just what I’ve picked up from The Queen of the South Message Board, but there seems to have been quite a majour fire at the Peel Centre tonight. My wife called me upstairs at about 6:15 as she had seen a lot of smoke in the distance. As it was just starting to get dark, it was difficult to work out where it was coming from, but after some in depth journalism (I posted a message on the board) initial word was that Pets at Home was on fire. It now seems that the fire actually started at Brantano Shoes, but spread (or at least the smoke did) to Matalan, Pets at Home and maybe even JJB Sports. I hope to bring you more as I get it, please update THIS SITE’S MESSAGE BOARD if you know more.
The snow returned to Dumfries last night, as if from nowhere, bringing the town to a grinding hault this morning. My question through isn’t so much about the snow, as the traffic. As usual, on a day when police would be advising people “only to travel their journey was absolutely necessary”, there were twice as many cars as usual out and about this morning. It took my bus, which I get at the same time every day, 30 minutes to complete the normal 15 minute journey from Georgetown, along the nose to tail Annan Road, and into the town. People coming to work from the other side of town had an even worse time of it, as Pleasance Avenue and Castle Douglas Road were tailed back and the traffic wasn’t moving. So where did all the extra trafic come from? I think there may have been new roadworks on St.Michael Street, but I’m convinced that some people just come out so that they can join the queues!
We went to Castle Douglas on Saturday morning, and what a contrast to Dumfries! They may not have the big name shops like New Look, Next, M&S, Watersons, WH Smith etc. (although they do have a Wilkinsons, how I’d love to see them move into the old Woolworths!), but neither do they have the rows of empty shops which are now such a feature of Dumfries High Street. I don’t remember seeing one empty unit in a High Street filled mainly with local shops, but with an excellent variety to choose from. Contrast that to the run up from Bank Street to the Midsteeple, which you’d think would be prime Dumfries Real Estate, but which now features 4 empty shops, or the once vibrant area around Woolworths with about as many, and maybe it’s time Dumfries thought about dropping their rates and encouraging some local shops back into the town center?
I’ve got a feature on the site which I’ve got the cheek to title “Site of the Month”. In reality, it the “Site of whenever I come across something I quite like”. Chris Frear contacted me recently about his site, which features some stunning photographs from around rural Nithsdale, and, although it doesn’t strictly fit my usual criteria of being a site about Dumfries Town, I liked it enough to bend the rules a bit and make it the latest site of the month.
I know I go on about DG1 a lot, but it’s good to see it back to full operation after the work on the training pool was completed. They’ve had a bit of a cheek still charging full price for the last few weeks, but I guess I could have voted with my feet and not actually gone. Seemed to me a few people did just that, it will be interesting to see how many return now that the pools are fully functional again.
Almost inevitably, as soon as all the snow had melted, along came the floods. The Whitesands was closed when I went by at about 3:00 Saturday, don’t know if it had actually flooded, but the river was pretty high. The frustrating thing is, and I’m sure it’s much worse for the residents and business owners on the Whitesands, that I’m pretty sure just making the wall about a foot higher for a small length of the river would stop most of the floods. I can’t remember where it was now, but I remember once seeing the flood defences a town had, and it was just some metal sheets which could be raised when the river got too high. It didn’t look like the kind of thing that would cost all that much.
At long last we seem to have seen the back of the snow and ice which has been here since just before Christmas, the longest cold spell that I can remember. To be fair, if It wasn’t for this blog posting, I’d probably forget about it by this time next year, I’m not one of those old timers who remembers that “The Big Freeze of 1962 was much worse!”, I need something to remind me, and that’s why I’m making this post. And, I hope to start making more regular postings on here!
I’ve just heard that all schools in Dumfries & Galloway will be closed tomorrow (5th January). As they don’t seem to have updated with Council Website with this information, and have left the decision right until the last minute, I thought I’d better put it on here!
My New Year’s resolution this year was to make a weekly blog entry on here. Here we are near the end of April, and I’m getting round to my first! Have to say, I admire the guys at The Standard and Courier for managing to produce a paper once or twice a week in Dumfries. Behind the scenes, I have been busy working on The Dumfries Place Finder again. I was inspired by the fact that I was going up to Ayr on holiday last week, and was looking for a POI file for my Sat Nav. I did find one eventually, but I was thinking how nice it would be to be able to create my own. So I’ve now added the ability to create a POI file from your favourite places in Dumfries to the Place Finder. I’m still perfecting it, but there is a working version on the site now, so if you’re visiting Dumfries soon, give it a go.
On the subject of Ayr, I’d say Dumfries and Ayr used to be pretty much comparable (OK, Ayr always had the edge, being on the coast, nearer Glasgow, and having it’s own Airport, but there wasn’t that much in it). Last week, however, we found Ayr has gone shooting ahead. My wife assures me that the shopping is much better, they’ve got a Pizza Hut (big advantage in my book!), ASDA, and on our last day there, we ate in Cactus John’s, an American Diner with a Cowboy theme, which caters for all the family, something Dumfries is sadly lacking. On the subject, they also still have a Brewster Bears, and a very good one at that, I was very disappointed that the Dumfries Brewsters decided to become a table2table, as it was really the only child friendly restaurant in town (or at least, the most child friendly), I certainly haven’t been back since they decided to change.
I took the kids to see the Panto (Puss In Boots) at the Theatre Royal last night. They, and the wife and myself, had a great time, and I’d recommend it to anyone, particularly if you’ve got kids. Before I go over the top, I have to point out that the Panto is put on by amateurs, and anyone going along hoping to see Larry Olivier and Russell Brand acting and comedy skills is going to be, deservedly, disappointed. However, if you treat it as what it is, a local amateur theatre group, who give up their time after work and school to learn lines and put on a very polished performance, you won’t be disappointed. Go along, join in the spirit of the thing, and you’ll soon find yourself laughing at even the corniest (and there are some terrible ones) jokes!
I have to admit, it was a bit slow to take off, but once it got going, and the crowd, which was quite healthy the night I was there, started to join in, the show really did take of. The stars of the show are undoubtedly Gilbert and Philbert. I went to the Panto last year (Santa in Space) and the guys are basically playing the same characters again!, but they do it really well. You can tell a lot of what they are doing is ad libbed, which is pretty impressive for amateurs. Some of the jokes will make you cringe, but I found that a sympathetic laugh built their confidence, and things did get better as the show went on. None of the rest of the cast let themselves down, I don’t think any of them are going to be ‘discovered’ and whipped off to the West End before the Panto finishes it’s run, but none of them in any way ruin the enjoyment.
So get yourself along and support this very worthy local effort.
