Oxygen

Today is Goosey Fair - an historical event held annually by the attractive Devonian market town of Tavistock.

The first time I went I was rather hoping for a goose sandwich - I rather like goose.  Makes a change from Dartmoor Pony, or turkey for that matter.

Well, there was not a goose in sight, I searched and searched.  Instead I came away with five watches, all of whose batteries expired five months later, and a pair of slippers in Size 8.

The staff and Mums at Beloved Daughter's school dread Goosey Fair, which is held on the first Wednesday of October every year.  I'm the only I know who looks forward to its buzz and naffness.

Of greatest interest to me, is the almost universal inverse relationship between precocious child and scary ride.  Beloved Daughter's best friend Jackie is a slight, gentle, very polite, obedient and intellectual creature, meanwhile determination and courage do not feature at the top of the leader board for Beloved Daughter when it comes to the hockey pitch or the cross country course.

And yet. These two, aged 10, insisted on queueing up for the scariest rides available at the fair.  The tallest, fastest, highest, loudest one is called 'Oxygen'.  Dorothy, (Jackie's mother) and I both felt sick as we stared up at our two little girls whizzing around backwards and forwards 200 metres above us, laughing their heads off. Their peers waited next to us at the foot of the horrifying, thumping, crane-like edifice, gazing up in wonder, a newfound respect emerging for our sweet daughters. Then they quietly slid off to their own favourite ride - one where you sit in a giant teacup and, very slowly, go round and round in circles.

So Im off there again in a minute.  I wonder whether the fairground people have managed to build something even wilder than Oxygen? Our two girls are beginning to find it rather tame, now they have reached the great age of 12!