Not knowing "how its always done"

I have always preferred working with people who are outside the field they were trained in. Perhaps it is natural, given that I changed careers from the very academic art gallery curator to the very muddy gardening florist.

It pre-dates that though - the best exhibition I worked on in terms of sheer outside the box excitement was at Kelvingrove museum with Ben Kelly - designer of the Manchester nightclub The Hacienda. He had no concept that things couldn't be done - the problems of listed buildings, crane access, getting porters to work late and so on meant nothing to him as he had never worked within a hierarchical institution like a council art gallery - so miraculously they got done.

To be honest I think it was a nightmare for the Kelvingrove curator in charge of working with him but for a lowly minion it was an eye-opener in how being trained in "how things are done" can be a real disadvantage.

I have been thinking about this this week as I have to work out how I deal with florists who want to buy flowers. Most florists come here because they have been steered in our direction by brides who want to curb their carbon footprint by having Scottish grown flowers at their wedding. It is not usually the florist's idea which is probably not a good start.

Then they visit and we have the problem of the flowers not being on show as it is the wrong season and my photographs all being of things growing in the garden, not laid out in boxes. We have a discussion that goes something like "well will you have any gerberas?", "no", "cream orchids?", "no", "Bacarrat roses?" "no" and as you can tell this is not a good conversation for either of us. I feel lousy, they feel frightened of not being familiar with the flowers that I say I will have and altogether it is a really bad thing. It is something I have to address as it is largely my fault that they go away without understanding what we are trying to do.

By and large these are conventionally trained florists - they wanted to become florists on leaving school, they did their City and Guilds and worked their way up the ranks in a florist shop before opening their own shop. They know exactly how things should be done, what flowers you should use for wedding pedestals and how many stems should be in a bunch. They don't know what to make of me at all.

And then, thank heavens, there is a different kind of florist - florists I love working with. They tend to have worked doing something else before floristry- teaching, pr, car design etc. - and their approach to visiting me is completely different. They show up - they want to see what is growing now because you never know when that will be useful for other events, they want to talk about how I use things, vase life, texture, flexibility of stems, how long will something last out of water, is the stem hollow, will the flower bend to the light. Questions, questions, questions and curiosity. They make a lot of notes, they take a lot of photos, they e-mail me a couple of days later to check out specific cultivars. It is a quite different experience and I feel happy sending my flowers off with them.

The difference is so great that I do wonder whether a compulsory career change should be brought in aged 28 for the benefit of the creativity and drive of the country.

This is an unfair generalisation of course - Jane Packer is a work up from the bottom career florist, Paula Pryke a career change teacher, as for Shane Conolly - my own favourite celebrity florist- I haven't a clue what his background is, I just know he obviously loves his flowers.

Perhaps I should have a questionnaire.

Schools out for summer - what summer?

Tomorrow school breaks up for the long summer vacation - this is a great benefit of living in Scotland, allowing speedy Scottish parents to take cheaper summer holidays before the English schools break up and it becomes high season prices.

I love the summer holidays - though this year we are not going away. I love the more relaxed pace, the children being able to just mooch and read and draw if they want to, without the pressure and rush of having to be at set places at particular times. I love the fact they don't have to dress up or wear uniform.

We have a relaxed house over the holidays as I still have to work so while I do that, they can do pretty much what they like (as long as it doesn't involve television or power tools).

Last summer was glorious, the sun shone all holiday and the children turned almost feral with sun kissed hair and ingrained dirt from days spent outside making dens and lying in the grass. This year - despite the promised hot summer - it does not look as good. Thank heavens we have not had the rain that has effected Yorkshire but today it is cold with a steady drizzle.

I think that I shall have to go and stock up on lots of glitter and glue.

I am helped as well by the fact that the girls spend 2 weeks each summer with my parents which allows me to compensate for the slower pace of life when they are here. Many other working parents are not as lucky - and it makes you see why mothers are desperate for jobs that have the school holidays off - I know nurses, dentists and pr people who are all working as classroom assistants simply because the holidays fit in with their lives.

The picture is of a box of flower posies destined for the lucky teachers at a local school.

Reception rant

The wedding where I was arranging the flowers had the reception at one of the hotels on the banks of Loch Lomond. The hotel attracts wedding couples with its spectacular views over the Loch but on days like yesterday - where you couldn't actually see the water from the function room - it presumably has to offer something else.

I am not mentioning the name of the hotel as this is going to be a wee bit of a rant.

The bride wanted very simple understated flowers so at the reception there was just to be small table centres - so far, so easy - I was just to drop them off after I had arranged the church flowers.

At least that was the idea - I arrived and this was the entrance for the wedding party. Actually that is not quite true as I took this photo after I had already done a lot of litter picking. 2 rather ill looking bay trees in chipped plastic pots and weedy soil - covered in old dirty plastic ribbons, most of which had come undone.

I spoke to the hotel about it and they said "Oh the brides usually bring their own ribbon" - not "Oh goodness you are right that looks terrible I shall get someone onto it" - not even "Do you have any suggestions?" just a "that's not my problem" attitude. I still can't believe that they were happy for the bridal party to arrive in their lovely clothes, step from their fancy cars into an area of soiled decorations, seedy looking trees and cigarette ends.

There wasn't really that much I could really - I weeded the trees, picked up the litter, removed the dirty curly ribbon and cut off the yellow dead leaves. I had some wired grosgrain ribbon left over from the church flowers so I tied that round the trunks and cut some oxe-eye daisies from the carpark verge, threading them into the trees as a bit of decoration. There was nothing I could do about the chipped pots or the general air of sodden neglect.

It all seems so unnecessary.



These are the table decorations for the inside! A mix of mint, rosa "William Lobb", sweetpea "Matucana"; eryngium "Miss Willmotts Ghost" and nepeta "Souvenir d'Andre Chaumont".

Business guru

This is the man I have been spending the past couple of days with (well in print anyway) - he is Michael Gerber, author of the book The E Myth Revisited.

As I have explained before I tend to lose books, sending them home with people and then never getting them back again. This happened last summer with my copy of the E Myth and I have finally cracked and picked up another copy.

The reason is, besides my compulsive book buying habit, is that it is quite simply an inspirational book. It shows how small businesses, particularly ones like mine founded on the fact that I can technically do things (sewing, gardening), fail because you are so busy, busy, busy doing the day to day stuff - the making, the selling, the invoicing, the packing, the meetings with clients, the floor sweeping, the weeding- that you forget to give any time over to actually building the business itself.

This is one of those books that pinpoint all your faults, make you accept them and THEN shows you how to change them.

It takes a lot of discipline though - it is a lot of hard work of a different kind, working on and not in your business - and I am just at the beginning.

But the change is in my brain - all day it has been fizzing fizzing, fizzing with ideas and plans and concrete ways forward to have the kind of integrated life and business that I want. And it does physically feel as though I am fizzing - peculiar.

Now I just need to carry it all through and create this wonderful thing that is Snapdragon.

I would also like to point out that I am not a self-help book kind of person - I phoned the only other person I know of who has systematically gone through the whole E-myth process (rather than just read the book and say "that's a good idea") and she was even more effusive - even though I was phoning out of the blue - it has completely changed her life and business. Well that is some recommendation.

I'll let you know how I get on. Fizzz, fizzzzz, fizzzzz

Connections

Connection is the word that we would have inscribed above the door in Snapdragon's imaginary shop. It is the word at the core of what we aspire to do. Connect with the seasons, with the soil, connect with our customers, with the community. Only connect. This blog is a symptom of that quest.

Yesterday Carolyn wrote a very astute comment on my post about the demise of the Country Living Scottish Fair, questioning whether handmade was enough of an intrinsic value in itself.

It was a comment that made me think - because I am very vociferous about the fact that the similar catch all "organic" covers a multitude of sugary sins. I think that she is right - why do I get worked up about the need to preserve the hand made in Britain?

If I want to buy a salad bowl why do I go to the local craft gallery rather than Habitat? If I wanted to buy a doorstop why Primrose Hill rather than Cath Kidston?

And I think that it stems from this basic need for connection - connection at some level to a discernable human maker.

I do not feel comfortable buying from chain shops - I was in Edinburgh shopping yesterday and was very put off by the impersonal nature of the shops. The place where I did buy ( a party dress from East) was largely because of a wonderfully engaging member of staff. When I do part with my money it tends to be either in craft or antique shops.

I don't really know where this post is going - I think it is very hard to justify the allure of the handmade using pure logic. Yet it seems that, like lighting an open fire, growing your own vegetables or making jam, there is something more, something unmeasurable. All these things, if judged on a strict value for time and money basis, would probably fail, yet they are the parts of life that give me connection and are therefore, for me, beyond value.

That is how I feel about the hand made (though not all handmade) and the reason that I think it is worth fighting to promote.

I would be very interested to hear what items people value as hand-made and which they don't.

Thanks again for all your comments and e-mails.

Not quite the golden egg you would think.

Last week I got a letter from Upper Street Events who run the Country Living Fairs to say that they would not be having a Fair in Scotland next Spring.

It has turned out not to be an viable event for them.

It is a strange thing - talk to the stall holders and they feel that they are paying too much for their space, talk to the customers and they feel that the ticket price is too high, talk to the organisers and they say that they cannot make a profit on the event.

Perhaps there are not enough people in Scotland/North of England to justify the event - certainly, speaking to people who do both the London and the Glasgow Fair there are far fewer people at the Scottish event, spending far less per person.

That is perhaps the rub.

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend who had just bought a beautiful quilt from a catalogue specialising in Fair Trade goods. It was a lovely piece of work - the pieces had been carefully toned and my friend had bought it because of that, but also because it had been made by someone being paid properly for the work. She felt that she paid about a £70 premium for the good feeling that she has buying Fair Trade.

How many people would (or perhaps also could afford to) do that?

The Country Living Fair tries to reflect the magazine - to have a high proportion of stalls selling hand made, locally sourced, high production cost items - whether that is bags made from vintage materials or hand made jewellery.

The problem is that the price of those goods reflect the fact that they take time to make. With the Scottish Fair what seemed to happen was that each year there were fewer and fewer of these specialist stalls as too few people bought from them and they did not cover costs. Gradually stalls importing mass produced jewellery, enamelware, trinkets and so on began to dominate. Even the stalls which sold handmade items began to supplement with bought in goods, which were cheaper and therefore easier to sell. This applies to me as much as anyone else - whereas everything bar some hyacinth vases was made by me in the "home section" of my stall, there were pots and hand tools in the "garden" bit which were bought in - and available at another stall in the hall.

There were approximately 12,000 visitors to the Scottish Fair - that means to cover costs on a small stall you have every single person who comes in that door spend 30p with you. That is very high indeed. No wonder so many stallholders - with lovely stalls - hardly make a profit.

I really don't know what the answer is - if I could change one thing about our consumer society I would have people buy less but spend more time and money on their individual purchases. This Primark, disposable society depresses me. People look at a hand made object like a basket and think that it is expensive, if they began to think of the time taken to make it and what hourly rate they think would be fair, I expect that it would suddenly seem a great bargain. -

A Christmas Fair has been suggested for October 2008 and I hope that that comes off and that people use it as an excuse to get all their Christmas presents in one handcrafted, unique, happy shopping day.

I would be interested in hearing what people think from a customers' point of view.

Balmy balmy weather

At last we have the warm balmy air that the half hardy annuals need to start growing.

This has been a very peculiar and rather difficult year as far as flower growing goes. The very hot April brought on tulips very fast and they flowered in a great lump of colour over two and a half weeks rather than 6. The very cold wet May delayed all the flowers that should have taken over from them an for a few weeks, until the alliums emerged we were scrabbling around for flowers to sell.

The seedlings I planted out a few weeks ago - cornflowers, cosmos, snapdragons, sunflowers - all seem to have stayed still until this week (unfortunately not something I could say about the weeds) but in the past 3 days of hot clammy weather they have doubled in size and finally look as if they might turn into proper plants.

I am turning into a proper farmer with my ability to complain about the weather whatever it is. Next year I wonder about starting the seedlings off under tunnel hoops until the weather warms. We really have such a short growing season here it may be the only way in a chilly spring. That said - I really don't want the cutting garden to look like a strawberry field with chenilles of plastic glinting in the sunshine.

This poppy is Papaver orientale "Manhattan", a stunner if ever there was one.

Busy bees

This week Sally and I have been getting our fingers out and buzzing all over the place to let people know we are here. It is something we should have done 3 weeks ago.

When I began to sell from the house 2 years ago we had a very specific group of people who came each week - we were on the routine run between the Friday farmshop at France Farm and Killearn jumping beans. They were largely people that I knew socially through toddler groups and their friends.

A couple of weeks ago I began to notice that we no longer get this 11 am rush, so on Friday Sally and I sat down to think about the whys and wherefores, going through all the ex-11 am regulars. Some now come later on the way back from the afternoon school run - their children have simply outgrown toddlerhood. Others have returned to full time work and are not about at all on a Friday. Some have extended their maternity leaves, or returned to college, or taken up some arty non-paying job, they are down a wage and without cash to spend on flowers except for special occasions.

It all made me realise that I have been too complacent - we are always generally busy so I haven't been thinking about who our customers are and how we can continue to get them coming back. We have done a big effort on leafleting neighbouring villages to recruit a new generation of those toddler Mums and have our thinking caps on about how we can be more convenient for the rest.

I am very bad at this sort of thing, so it is a good job that I have Sally working with me. I would be the man with the better designed mousetrap waiting for people to beat a path to the door.

The greenhouse today

Just a quick post today with photos of the greenhouse and the flowers etc. for sale today.

My favourite flowers are anchusa dropmore - a great deep glowing blue which mixes well with the deep pink chrysanthemum "duro" and red astrantias.

The other photo shows cushions and toys on the vintage french metal cot.

Seduced by sewing threads

Over the past ten days or so I have been wishing for a good rainy day so that I can snuggle inside and do some hand sewing.

However, though every weather forecast claimed that it was raining, it was actually lovely and sunny and I spent my days outside potting on seedlings and trying (and failing) to keep on top of the weeding.

Today it was a bit drizzly - weather I would normally brave - but I declared it a wet day and indulged myself with some sewing.

The reason for this is that I recently acquired a stash of vintage embroidery silks - one is fabulously labelled "Flosette for Flourishing etc" - and I have been using them to make up a selection of one off cushions. Until today it has all been evening work and therefore very slow but today I have been able to work without children and with the table all to myself.

To make the cushion bodies I am using vintage wool blankets which I have felted and dyed. My favourite is a soft raspberry pink and the panel will be the vase of flowers shown half sewn above. I might put it on the website.

Obviously I can't spend all my time embroidering flowers so I am considering putting together kits with everything to make the cushions - embroidery, hoop, vintage linen, cushion cover, silks and buttons etc. I am not sure whether there is a market though. Feedback would be appreciated.

Everyone's talking about it. . .

Cherry Menlove from Tales from Pixie Wood has done a post about the PR fiasco that is the Sainsbury's Anya Hindmarsh "This is not a Plastic Bag". Read about it here.

I had held back from commenting on this as it could be interpreted as an attack on a competitor but Cherry's post has given me courage!

The bag seems to me to be a failure on all counts - it was given the kind of gimmicky pre-launch hype that turned it from being a useful object into a fashiony "must have" object that will be discarded as soon as it ceases to be fashionable. It seems to be a really bad design in terms of a carry it in your handbag as it is too big to scrunch up - see Jane Perrone's verdict on this aspect of it here and then here. So as soon as the "see me with my Hindmarsh bag" moment is over it will be discarded. Finally and most importantly it is manufactured in factories where there are severe doubts about working conditions (and here
and here).

It is all such a travesty - something that should have been positive - encouraging people not to take a plastic bag at the supermarket - has just been done so badly because people have been blinded by fashiony types and celebrity pre-launches. Am I the only one that actually thinks it is a very unattractive bag anyway? - I like a lot of Hindmarsh's designs but not this

However all is not lost - there are a lot of great bags out there - as well as my bag that folds up into its pocket there are lovely totes at Cherry's and Samanthas which would scrunch up nicely into a handbag. They may be a bit more expensive than the Hindmarsh bag but they are made with love and care in Britain, won't date, are actually designed to work and will last for years and years. Unlike the latest "must have" they are proper "limited editions" and will get people asking you where you got them. Cheapest is usually not best (or cheapest) in the long run.

Shop - 27th April

We are very tulipy today - a medly of orange tulips, including the lily tulip Ballerina which smells like fresias, tall apricot "dordogne", deep purple "recreado", yellow parrot "texas gold" and the giganitically tall cream "purissima".

There are also baby moon narcissi and some anenomes, late hyacinths and love lies bleeding.

Here is Jasmine sunbathing and waiting for customers to pay her attention.

Tomorrow I shall be at Baldernock Garden Club's annual plant sale in Baldernock Church Hall, Balmore Road 11-1. There is usually a very good plant stall so I am taking my money. here are details of the garden club.

Green Gallery Opening

Sally and I set up our stall outside the new Green Gallery this lunchtime - the sun was shining, the birds were singing, you could feel heat bouncing of the pale pink of the outbuilding wall.

By the time the Gallery opened at 2 our basky wee corner had somehow turned into an arctic wind tunneland we were laughingly innappropriate in our dress.

That aside, the afternoon was a good one. It was certainly very busy - for a half hour it was like that episode in Jimmy's Farm where they have to have stewards helping people reverse miles down single track roads and comandeer fields to park in.


The photographs are of Carneval de Nice tulips, a spring window box with muscari 'fascination', narcissi 'baby moon' and tulip 'gavota', and a cow in the sculpture garden - look at those eyelashes!

Green Gallery Opening and a temporary addition to our family.

Today was a day of rest - I just haven't got down to anything - just drifted from one half completed task to another.

I began potting on lavender cuttings which will be for sale at Drymen School's Fun day on May 12. The lavender stall will be manned and managed by the school's eco board and all proceeds will be going to pay for improvements to the school playground. I have agreed to nurture the cuttings until the sale. What a responsibility!

Tomorrow afternoon I shall have a stall at the opening of the Green Gallery- this is quite exciting. The Green Gallery used to be in Aberfoyle and always had a good mix of art and crafts. Its owner, Becky Walker has a keen eye for the kind of paintings, sculptures and ceramics that actually work in a home. I have never been in the position to buy a painting (though I have coveted a few) but over the years I have bought some lovely pottery and ceramics. Just before Christmas the Gallery moved to Becky's home in Buchlyvie - the Christmas Exhibition was in her actual home, a beautiful Victorian sandstone house with wonderful views to the hills. Now the gallery has moved to its proper place, a converted coach house in the grounds. I saw the space yesterday and it looks lovely - calm, clear yet domestic. There is also a sculpture garden I am keen to explore as getting pleasing sculpture for outside can be difficult. The opening is tomorrow 2-5 and all are welcome. More details of the exhibition are on the Green Gallery website.


This is Tim - a 12 year old Jack Russell. Tim's owner died last night so he has come to stay with us until he can be found a new owner. So far he seems to be a lovely dog - he and Jasmine are rubbing along fine and the cats are ignoring him.

He is used to being the only dog in the house with a single owner so I was a bit concerned about how he would take to us. So far, so good though he is still at the compulsive wandering around stage. His owner was not in great health for a while I am told so he didn't get many walks - his wandering sounds like someone drumming their long fingernails in impatience.

If anyone knows of someone with space in their home and heart for what seems to be a great wee dog - call me on 01360 660 903.

Best Day Ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We opened for the season this morning at 10.30. We had customers arriving from 9.30, calling in on their way back from vegetable shopping at France Farm. From then until 4 it just didn't stop. I am overwhelmed with people's support. One lovely woman travelled all the way from Broxburn having seen us at the CL Fair.

I was worried as the hot weather (see never satisfied) brought on some of the tulips and all of the fritillaries too fast so the garden looks beautiful but they are too far out to sell. Also deer got in while I was at the Country Living Fair (who did leave that gate open?) and ate over 800 tulip bulbs in one fantastic feast.

From Wednesday I have been prowling the garden. Would there be any flowers to pick? Would there be any customers? Would anyone want what I have.

But Sally and I found that when we looked, there were rather a lot of flowers out there. We filled the buckets with them and then was a rush of making up and wrapping all day. We have NO FLOWERS left and the stall is a mess of snipped stems and stripped leaves.

I am exhausted but very, very happy. Tonight we drink gin!

The photo is of Carneval de Nice - a double tulip, masses of raspberry ripple leaves forming a ball of a flower. It looks great in pots but is very bad at reblooming the next year.

Talk, talk . . .

Tonight I have been at Buchlyvie Garden Club talking about growing cut flowers. It was good fun. I was actually a bit nervous - I was using a borrowed power point projector and worried that something would go wrong with the connections. I can use it if it works, I am lost if something goes wrong.

In the end it was something more mundane that caused problems with the visuals. The screen, usually stored in the gents loos, was missing and we were faced with the prospect of having to project the images onto a mustard coloured woodchip papered wall. Lovely.

With 2 minutes to go before the start the missing screen was discovered . . . locked in the WRI (Women's Rural Institute) cupboard. Is this inter-club rural rivalry?

The flowers in the blue bucket are Narcissus "geranium", one of the longest lasting and most fragrant narcissi- a Sarah Raven recommendation . I picked a few buckets full to take along and sell to raise funds for The Tullochan Trust.

A post about post . . .

As a couple of people responded to my comment yesterday about the cost of postage I thought that I would open out the topic a bit and ask for some feedback both from other small mail order businesses and from people who buy mail order.

What can small businesses do about the cost of posting things?

I do a mailing two or three times a year - at the start of the season, sometimes at the end of the season and before Christmas. Ideally I would like to cut this down to one mailing a year but I do feel that, from a business point of view, a clutch of pretty postcards in the hand is better than any number of e-mails. They can be stuck to a fridge, handed on to friends etc. etc. . . .I hope. Am I right? Do people relish getting a bright hand addressed envelope (Or might they be disappointed that it isn't a birthday card with a fat cheque inside?)

There is also the issue of paper. I use recycled paper for all letters and print-outs but I do not use recycled envelopes as I couldn't source them in bright colours and I could not afford the cost of recycled postcards. This is not as good as it should be. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Then there is the issue of mailing out orders. We thought long and hard about this with the website and decided on a flat fee as, when I am buying things, I like to be able to do a transaction in one go without faffing about with e-mails (spot the stressed mother). We pitched this at £4.95, sort of on a par with Cath Kidston, Plumo or the White Company which are the type of catalogues my customers tend to read.

The average actual cost of the mailings I have done so far has been £7.50 (and that is postage, not boxes or tape) so really I can't afford to bring it down any lower. None has been under the £4.95.

What is other people's experience of this - do you look at the postage and think mmmmm, maybe I'll pop into the shops in town? Are people more au fait with postage costs in our post e-bay world? Should I be conning couriers into thinking I am a big company?

That aside - I am on a high today - the first batch of letters went out yesterday, would have arrived with people today, and already I have had phonecalls from a high percentage of last year's subscription customers re-ordering for this year. If I could work out how to insert one of those smily face icons, I would.

Prize Draw

We had a small prize draw at the Country Living Fair - The prize was this basket of gardening goodies - kneeler, soap, giant fork and trowel and a set of aluminium labels.

It was won by Wendy Waller of Edzell and (due to holidays) will be dispatched to her today.

Today I am stuffing envelopes with my new postcards and an announcement that we are open from Friday. Surrounded by bright green envelopes, it makes me realise how much paper, time and money is spent on mailings. This was partly the reason for the prize draw. To enter we had to be given an e-mail address - not so that we can spam people - just to make it easier to let them know when the season begins and ends and what we are doing for Christmas.

Time shortage being what it is, I haven't put the names onto the computer yet . . . . so much for efficiency.

Time to chat

Today was a much more relaxed day - more a steady stream than mad surges so there was more time to talk to people.

Time to talk to customers who bought dahlias last year and are back to add to their collections this year.

Time to talk to the bloggers (8 in all) that came and said hello - hopefully you will all feel ready to comment now you've seen my face.

Time to talk to fellow stallholders and find out how the London shows are and make contacts.

Just time to talk.

I am actually not feeling that well this week - I caught some kind of chest infection from Zoe - so I have been drugged up today and paranoid about coming across as really spaced out. Tonight I am left with just a poor croak of a voice - I am keeping quiet and hope it is back to full force tomorrow. Otherwise it will have to be sign language.


Sorry that these are yet more photos of MY stall. I'm not trying to be narcissistic< I just forgot my camera.

Do come & say Hi if you are coming to the CL Fair this weekend.

Busy, busy, busy

Goodness, it was busy. At 10 o'clock as the doors opened we were still tagging up and sticking magnet sets up on the wall.
From that point on we didn't stop. Jo, who was in shopping stayed to help as we were overwhelmed with queues of people wanting to chat.
The nicest thing was that practically first in the queue were a couple of women who bought garden kneelers last year and rushed in to buy several more before we sold out. that got my day off to a very good start.
And we have sold out of a number of things so we shall be re-arranging the stall first thing this morning.
The upshot is that I haven't really had a chance to look round. I had intended to post about all the lovely stalls but haven't any photos and only know stalls either in the ways to the loos or near to us. Caroline Zoob's stall is gorgeous as usual, Primrose Hill Interiors is very pretty, Samantha Holmes has wonderfully luxurious jumpers and scarves and there are a couple of lovely vintage fabric stalls.