THE Water Rat has a point when he tells the Mole about his fascination with boats in Kenneth Grahame's classic novel, The Wind In The Willows. Few would quibble with his famous line: "There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats".
But a close second must be the joy of mooching around in street markets, savouring the sights and smells of the foodstuffs and goods on offer, and bumping into friends and acquaintances. In my book, it is well up in the top 10 most enjoyable human activities.
For hundreds of years natives and visitors to Galway have enjoyed its traditional market, which takes place on Saturday mornings in the streets around the Church of St Nicholas in the heart of the city.
In the past it served as a constant reminder of the city's role as a place where town and country met, where elderly farmers with weather beaten faces sold bags of spuds or huge heads of green cabbage to housewives from Taylor's Hill and Bohermore.
Nowadays, the market is much more cosmopolitan, but the elderly farmers are still there, cheek by jowl with hippies selling jewellery or tie dye T shirts, other farmers selling organic vegetables and free range eggs, and young entrepreneurs selling a variety of mouth watering cheeses, breads, home made sausages and olives.
But it seems hemmed in by the dense traffic that presses in on every side. And changes proposed to the way the market operates are seen by some as a dark metaphor, for the changes brought on the city by Galway's explosive growth in recent years.
Galway Corporation wants to bring in by laws to regulate the market in keeping with the Casual Trading Act which came into law last year. The effect of the proposed changes would be to cut the number of stalls by almost a third, introduce new licences and fees for traders, and ban all parking in the area - including a small number of vans and trailers used by vegetable and fruit sellers and seen as essential by them.
The corporation says the changes are necessary to regulate the market and ease traffic congestion. The traders point to the principles of a free self regulating market which underlie western capitalism and say things have worked out fine without the rules until now. If it ain't broken, they say, don't fix it.
They are incensed by what they see as the corporation's heavy handed approach in formulating the draft by laws without consulting them, and are worried by the sweeping powers it reserves "to change and alter the internal lay out of the trading spaces within the Casual Trading Areas at any time".
On the other hand, the corporation's Joe O'Neill says consultations with traders and other interested parties will start within the next fortnight. He says shopkeepers in the area hold conflicting views about the street traders and the corporation has a duty to try and resolve those different views.
One view they might bear in mind is expressed by Ed Keilthy who, with his wife Jackie, sells sterling silver and gold jewellery based on Celtic and aboriginal motifs in the market.
"This is an ideal springboard for people to start their own businesses," he says. "I came off the back to work allowance scheme two years ago. I had a product and wanted to try it out and see if there was a demand for it".
He claims - the experiment would have failed if he had tried to sell his jewellery through craft shops. The normal mark up in shops for such items is about 100 per cent, he claims. This would have made his items "overpriced", and besides he would not have been able to get the valuable feedback from customers that he gets in the market.
"If I didn't have the market as an outlet I may never have got my business off the ground," says Ed.
Rachel Parry sells different kinds of bread and has a similar view. "It's the last opportunity for people with nothing to set up a business. We started with £5 and there is nowhere else you can set up a business with £5."
For years Mel Hand has been selling vegetables in the market which were grown on the family farm near Athlone. "My father was coming here for 36 years before me," he says.
He is particularly upset at the new bollards erected by the corporation which restrict access to the market. The bollards went up "without warning early one morning. "They've taken all the access away from us. We're usually finished around 3 p.m. - sometimes I have to wait until 5.30 p.m. to get out."
He is angry with the way the corporation has handled the situation. "They have treated use with utter contempt. We have got word back that they are willing to meet us, but that only happened when we got a solicitor on the job."
There is a also growing unease in the city at the way decisions - vital to its future are being made.
To this correspondent, a former resident who has returned to live in Galway after an absence of almost 10 years, the deterioration in the quality of life here is startling.
Sprawling new housing estates have sprung up in the west of the city, generally without much in the line of shops or other services.
Other developments in the city centre and elsewhere have proceeded apace, despite strong local opposition in many cases.
One Galway native lists all the green spaces lost to the city since her childhood, before gloomily predicting that whatever is left will hardly see the millennium celebrations.
Increased traffic congestion has trebled journey times for commuters living out along the Cois Fharraige road. Many of the new residents in places like Bearna and Na Forbacha are scarcely aware of living in the "Gaeltacht". Ask them about the linguistic impact and they will look at you as if you have two heads.
Some people have even become victims of "road rage" as tempers flare in places where not so long ago an ass and cart would not have looked out of place.
Meanwhile, much has been made of the Mutton Island row in the local press in recent months, with frequent horror stories from letter writers about the turds encountered while swimming in the bay.
The dirty grey scum visible at favourite swimming spots at Blackrock and Silver Strand - despite its blue flag - bears witness to the urgent need to resolve the problem.
Poets like W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot used to be fond of railing against the "filthy modern tide" in their poetry. That tide has come in with a vengeance in Galway, and there is no sign of it turning.