Entry for July 04, 2007

After yesterday's entry I had cause to go back to Aulds. The denizens of the Orange Walk had left, and the shop manager - who had expected a normal quiet Saturday - was in the middle of a scene of devastation. Half eaten pies and paper bags littered the little cafe, and the floor was spattered red with what might have been tomato sauce or, more likely, the blood of an itinerant South American priest, on a mission to Lanarkshire. ("Good day amigos! I have come to spread the word of God, but first I have decided to join you - and I wish to sample the delights of a Macaroni Pie with broon sauce. Who are these people in blue t shirts and why are they approaching me so quickly? Do they wish to confess their sins? Oh...Oh...Noooo")
The manager of Aulds was absolutely shattered. She hadn't known that all the thick protestants in a forty mile radius would be descending on Almada Street, nor that her shop would be the only food shop for a mile that was still open - the rest had wisely shut their doors for the duration of the march.
I imagine that the scene must have been much like Day of the Dead, as the drooling hordes realised there was a shop selling bridies in the neighbourhood. I see them stumbling, arms outstretched, towards the shop, in their ripped Rangers tops and waving ragged Northern Ireland flags. Then, slack-jawed, pressing ther faces against the window of the shop, repeating the word "Hot Pie...Hot Pie...Hot Pie..." endlessly, like some half remembered dream of a former life.
Then, the most intelligent of them (and that is a relative term) works out how to use the door handle...