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We haven't even been living in Hitchin for 3 months yet, but I do like this place. It was recently declared to be
the 20th happiest town in the UK which is actually the perfect level of happiness. If you're in the happiest place, Woodbridge, then the pressure to remain happy in such a joyful place is going to be very stressful and make you extremely unhappy. Also you have to ask yourself why you're this happy. The world is a terrible place, you should have some sense of balance. If you're the happiest place then you are probably living in some kind of dream world or cult. But 20th happiest place - no pressure to be artificially happy or push down any occasional sadness, no one thinking, "I hate happy places, I am going to go and live there and be a right miserable cunt." I hope we stay the 20th happiest place forever. Because 20th happiest place is actually the happiest possible place. Oh wait.
Anyway we had friends round for what should have been our Christmas dinner in hindsight. Although I admire the tradition I don't think the stuff we have for Christmas dinner is actually very nice. Turkey is a flawed meat and is a lot of hassle to cook without killing anyone through food poisoning and sprouts are very easy to mess up and Christmas pudding is some kind of vestigial food from the middle ages which I think is OK, but not the kind of thing you want to be eating when already stuffed. Today Catie (on her own I have to say) did an amazing spread of lamb and roast potatoes, with an array of salads and it did the job of being a feast that made me eat too much that I felt sick, but was also properly delicious and had some healthy aspects to it. I don't eat red meat much any more so the lamb was a bit of a shock to the system, but it was terrific . Maybe the tradition should be that you eat whatever your favourite food is or in keeping with the idea that Christmas was the one day where you ate like a king, we could just eat one of the lovely foods that we try to avoid the rest of the year due to not wanting to die at 25 of gout. Would anyone be disappointed if Christmas dinner was steak and chips? Maybe in a quantity that doesn't make you explode if you finish off with a wafer thin after dinner mint.
Anyway, all the good work of the last month of eating healthily was undone (and it's not even actually Christmas day yet) and I wanted to go to sleep. But instead we had to go out on to the cold streets of Hitchin because today was the day of the Hitchin Tractor Run.
It's possibly the biggest Tractor Run in the UK
an ancient tradition dating all the way back to 2021, an incredible fund raising event where seemingly 10,000 tractors drive through the town to the delight of the tractor hungry citizens of Hitchin and Baldock. It's absolutely insane, not least because, as Catie pointed out, at any other time of year seeing a tractor on the road ahead of you is a source of severe irritation (it happened to me this morning when I popped back to the old house) and yet now everyone was cheering tractor after tractor after tractor.
We were waiting for maybe half an hour for the tractors to arrive - "We want tractors" chanted the kids. Well be careful what you wish for, because we then got about an hour's worth of almost nothing but tractors. It was a lot of tractors. But the repetition made it more amusing. And most of the farmers (quite a presumption there - could just be other people who have tractors) had gone to quite some trouble to dress up their tractors with lights and decorations. And most of them were blasting out their horns and waving. It was surreal, insane and brilliant.
Every now and again there'd be a break and you'd think it was over and then more tractors would arrive. Occasionally you'd fear that maybe the parade involved infinity tractors and would never end. Best of all though, occasionally a couple of regular cars would go through. These were drivers who had somehow managed to make use of a gap in the relentless flow of tractors and snuck into the line thinking they could get on their way, rather than being held up for an hour by unexpected tractors and now found themselves being ironically cheered and waved at by Hitchin families or have me shouting at them "You're not a tractor". They represented all of us on any other day, stuck behind a sarcastic amount of tractors as they tried to get on their way, but on this upside down day of the year, the car drivers were now the enemy, punished for daring to think they were more important than the ancient Tractor Run and in danger of being dragged from their vehicles by angry tractor lovers and kicked to death.
If I am honest it was too many tractors, though an occasional emergency vehicle or haulage truck or minibus (all officially part of the parade) would mix things up a bit or one of the tractors would be travelling much too fast adding a sense of jeopardy to the whole thing.
It made me think that to liven things up next year and make it more than an infinite parade of tractors they should turn the whole thing into a no-rules tractor race. Whatever it takes. Whichever tractor gets to Hitchin town centre first wins. It would be terrific to see tractors trying to knock each other off the road or crush each other under their huge tractor wheels, taking out spectators. I'd pay to witness that and risk being flattened by a tractor. I guess whoever turned up with the biggest steamroller would win.
But you have to love a town where 50,000 people come out to look at tractors in the cold and the tractors made everyone so delighted that we're in danger of being the 19th happiest town in the UK next year. And no one wants that. Just ask the people of Wandsworth.
