Frome is nice, jolly nice! It has
A main street with too many barber shops
Pet-friendly tea rooms gorged with
Buttercream Victoria sponge
Caramel fudge and sea salt specialty chocolate
Restaurants only open three days a week
Burger joints with a vegan option - Always!
And Ubers that will be with you in seventeen minutes
For a £7.69 trip

On caf tables
A glass jar that contains
Hand-crafted fortune cookies
Each stored in a small brown envelope
On the front of which is
Handwritten in biro:
GIVE A BIG SMILE! :-)
Flyers for the spring festival with
A banner competition (Sunday)
A fun race (Monday)
And a men-only chat at the local cinema (Tuesday)
As the main events

Bath limestone and period furniture all around
It wouldn't take much to
Buy an old church or a silk factory
At the local agent
And make them your home
A city museum in an odd-shaped building
Water running down an open gutter
In the middle of a paved street
That doesn't need Health and Safety
Crazy-busy art and craft shops
Full of people learning to draw
As if their life depended on it
Who take their time with the cashier at the till
Chatting about nothing in particular
For a little too long

Folks smile at me when I pass by
Even teenagers!
As if in doubt - a stranger? Here?
But kindly still
Giving it a chance
How peculiar - how civil
The sweetness of a community
Of humans in no rush
Committed to listening to one another
A pure breed giant dog asleep at their feet

The restaurant manager is 22
He has impeccable manners and
Takes me through the allergies process faultlessly
When I ask to have the pomegranates removed from my salad
"Sign here, we're not responsible if you die - It's on you"
He says in so many words as he intones
The entangled disclaimer on his screen
Professional adorable
I can see how he got the gig
Happy to work with that

Everywhere, the food is good
The drinks affordable
And the set price menu on Tuesdays
Comes with a free pint, a dessert
Or a glass or house red
That tastes like wine and not sandpaper

Inside room only silence
Deep and soothing
I can rest here
*Really* rest
Reconnect, recentre
Not just have a shut-eye
Or add 10 points to my sleep score
Outside the window, a road sign:
Glastonbury - 18 miles
Frome - The banlieue of magic
Fierce, earnest and dignified
Salt of the Earth
Fertile with the common sense of back then

And when I walk to the station the next morning
A guy with no shirt on
Who looks like a Viking, proudly
Repainting his fence in dark green
Shanties belting away from the kitchen window
Chances are I'll never be back
But it must be said:
Frome... Is jolly nice!