Weather!

Good morning!

It's Monday again, I think, where do I start…

So Friday night we held our last tasting night of the year at Aldreth Village Hall, it's the second time we have been here, we did a Gin tasting night before, this time it was a taster night of a range of spirits, Vodka, Gin, Rum and some others. Most of the people who came had come to the previous one. Gema and I got there early to get set up, I had my usual little head wobble just before it started hoping it was going to be a good night, by a good night I mean everyone enjoys themselves. As It was, it was a great night, they were a really great bunch, lots of laughs and fun. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and it set me up for the weekend. 

Saturday morning we went off to Holkham for the Christmas market, when we got there it was absolutely pouring down with rain, a really miserable morning, I had a chat with some other traders that I know and we were all saying my word its going to be a long hard day, who is going to come out in this! We were in a small wooden chalet in the courtyard so we didn’t even have the benefit of being inside where they had stalls too. At 10am when the event started, people started coming in, in their raincoats, then they just kept coming, laughing about how bad the weather was. The weather eased off a little in the afternoon before we finished at 4. It was a great day, I went back to speak to the other traders before we left and none of us could believe it! After doing shows for over 12 years you would think you would have an idea how the day would go, we laughed about the fact we had no idea and how wrong we could be. One of the highlights for me was the small brass band playing Christmas carols under a gazebo. I like listening to these. Once I finally get around to doing my Christmas shopping I usually stand and watch these in the street, then it feels like Christmas!

Sunday morning was another early start, I had to go to the distillery first thing to load up for the Wisbech Christmas Market, nearly had a disaster, got up the road before remembering I had left my money tin and card machine behind, that would of been interesting, I have done it before and ended up using a plastic pint glass with about 20p in it for my float, luckily I remembered so popped back to get it. When I got loaded and into the town centre, I finally found how to get into the marketplace, following a council vehicle round some cones I found myself stuck, a marshall in high vis pointed me in the right direction and I found my stall to get set up. It was absolute carnage, cars and van everywhere, I dumped my stock and got out of there, I eventually found a fantastic parking place (Thanks to Paul from Birdhouse Brewery!) which meant at the end of the show I could trolly my stock off and wouldn’t have to drive back on.

The weather was fantastic in the morning, I met loads of local people who follow us, its the first time I have done the Wisbech one, I am usually all over the country, but I had a great time. The highlight for me was I was chatting to a couple, I thought I recognised the lady and then she introduced herself. At the start of the first lockdown, we were giving out hand sanitizer and people where coming in with tubs to collect it, this was very early doors when I was asking the government to help etc and was very frustrated, a lady came in who was asking for some for some very elderly neighbors, at the time we had just received some lovely flowers from janet & Jaynes, a local florist who sent some in to thank us, after hearing what this lady was doing I gave her the flowers, she had tears in her eyes and so did I, this was the day I went on a major rant in my van about who is helping these people, who is helping her for example, the rant went viral. I had never seen this lady again, until yesterday, she had no idea she had inspired my rant, her husband did but she didn’t, so we were chatting about this yesterday, I had a lump in my throat, she looked so well, and came back later to the stall to say bye, I still have no idea of her name, but was amazing to see her. 

We had a great day at Wisbech, the music on the stage was great and not far from us so we could hear it, it was packed full of people, until around 1pm, then the heavens opened, it absolutely poured down, we didn't have the luxury of a wooden chalet, we just had an old fashioned market stall, so got absolutely soaked, come 2pm it had cleared the town, who could blame anyone for going home, so I walked my stock off, dropped it off at the distillery before heading home to dry out and have a hot shower, before heading back out for a lovely evening.

Sarah was at Holkham yesterday and again despite the weather they had even more people than they did Saturday, despite not having a lot of stock and running out of many items Sarah had a great day.

So overall a fantastic weekend, thank you to everyone who came out!

So this morning its all about getting straight after the weekend. We have had lots of internet orders to pack off and get out, messages and emails to answer before planning the week ahead.

Right off to a meeting!

Catch you later

Ant x