Our local town, Bridport, somehow manages to have two street market days a week - Wednesdays and Saturdays. Who knows how a small town can support that? I’m pretty sure some dedicated stall holders are the same at both, although I don’t get to see either very often. The weekly Wednesday shopping trip gets us in at 2pm by which time most of the stalls are being packed up, so we must content ourselves with the shops and cafes. And my day off each week doesn’t often fall on a Saturday.
Last Saturday however a number of us thrillingly got a chance not only to check out the market but actually participate in it. It was the day of Pilsdon’s annual market stall! It was the first time I’d been part of it. My main job : minibus driver. Although everyone else was either on the early or late shift, shuttling back and forth in cars, I had to be there from beginning (7:30am) to end (3pm) to transport the tables, gazebo, tinsel, chairs, signs, bunting, cloths, and all our produce. Plus a few people who managed to squeeze on.
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| Our new "bug hotel". So far one ladybird has checked in. |
This year was our biggest yet in terms of sheer amounts of stuff to sell. There was just tonnes of it. The two tables held only a fraction, the rest being stored underneath. Lots of beautiful pottery, fired in Pilsdon’s kiln. Bottles of golden apple juice from our orchard. Hand-sewn(!) Christmas cards, hand-drawn and lino-printed gift tags, pottery angels for Christmas trees, the Pilsdon 2016 calendar. And then there was the food. The front table was piled high with brownies, fudge, stollen, challah bread, poppy-seed bread, cakes, truffle tortes and jars and jars of lemon curd, jams, jellies, chutneys and chilli oil. The tables creaked with the weight.
Everything was done proper, like. The designated brownie-seller wore an apron and disposable plastic gloves and used tongs. The brownies themselves were covered with a transparent plastic sheet, the better to prevent particles of dirt to alight upon them. Money was handled by someone else so as not to allow the grubbiness of coins in any way to mar the perfection of our confection.
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| The huge oak tree (see blogposts passim) that I am to saw up |
Despite having got ourselves all ready and in position by 9am, people didn’t really come by in any numbers until about 11. To further attract attention to our fine stall, a motley threesome of musicians (myself included) played and sang Christmas carols for a time. It did actually seem to work. It was going to be just me on guitar and Rachel* on violin but she successfully press-ganged a reluctant Tarquin* into singing who very quickly rose to the occasion and was belting out pitch-perfect Joys to the World across Bridport. Tarquin acted and sang in London theatre productions prior to joining Pilsdon. It showed.
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| The approach to Bettiscombe church, a couple of miles west of Pilsdon |
By 2:30pm the gusts of wind were blowing five-pound notes across the street with me in swift pursuit and threatening to take our gazebo with it, so we decided to call it a day and pack up. We had sold an awful lot. People had been very generous. One man had paid for a £9.50 pottery jar with two ten-pound-notes, telling us to keep the change. Many customers had heard of Pilsdon but didn’t know much about what we do, so they left better informed clutching the latest newsletter. To top it all, once the counting was completed we found we’d broken our revenue record with a grand total of £658.18. A thoroughly successful day out and a whole lot of fun to boot!
* names changed
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