We'd been preparing ourselves all the previous week. Making additional stock, and gathering our craft market accessories together. Saturday was to be our first craft market of the year. We were apprehensive anyway, because this one was a bit of a punt. Being convinced by the organiser that a stall on the Sheringham Viking Festival site on Beeston Common could work for us - a stall full of items covered in Mid Century modern fabrics, perfumed candles and soaps etc. As long as there were other stalls like us we said, we'd be prepared to give it a go. Even though the other stalls sold things like Anglo Saxon mead and trumpets made from rams horn. The stall holders dressed in smelly furs, hank plated hair and chain mail. Both of us were, nonetheless, tense and sleeping badly, simply from apprehension.
The weather forecast at the beginning of the week for Saturday was not looking good. Bucketing it down all day, with a strong cold gale wind, nine degrees feeling like three. By the day before, this had reduced to a 50% chance of rain. In the early hours of Saturday morning it was fluctuating quite wildly, on a seemingly half hourly basis, from torrential to a mild drizzle. As we had to set off just after 8am, if we were to call it off, we'd have to do it soon. The moment we saw horizontal rain across the field opposite, we knew we wouldn't be sitting on Beeston Common trying to stop our gazebo from blowing into the village pond.
We sent a polite text and email saying we were pulling out. Friends of ours who were due to pitch their waffle making van on the common, inspected the water logged ground and pulled out too. So we were not alone. In fact most of the non Viking related stallholders did. Customers who'd been up there told us it was like Glastonbury, slippery mud underfoot, dejected looking stallholders, all a bit yuck. Suddenly we felt an immense relief, we'd made the right decision. Our shop, considering the day was such a total wash out, did OK.
The next day, our shop was closed anyway. We took ourselves off on a round trip. Taking in the monthly Holt Makers Market which was full of familiar stalls, a bit smaller than usual, but it was the first of the new season. Stocked up on Kimchi, Cortado and Lemon & Dill Sauerkraut from our favourite Le Digestif stall. We then progressed to Fakenham and The North Norfolk Artisan Fair which is held two or three times a year at Fakenham Racecourse. Primarily to see if we'd want to exhibit there. You paid a £6 entry fee! After this visit I'd say probably not. Calling it an Artizan Fair misrepresents what that means, and what was actually there. There was lot of bought in stuff, repackaged truckles of the same range of cheeses, manufactured cosmetics, mixed in with what was too frequently frankly a Church Fete level of craft making. There were some real artisan makers but few and far between. Artizan this was not, to portray it as such was indulging in a bit of 'craftwashing'.
We had at least hoped there would be a good cafe with homemade cakes, but only found a couple of trailers, with a feeble offering. So we took off for Stiffkey Stores and had a decent Latte and one of their superlative peanut blondies. Whilst we were there, a little girl dressed in a pink gauze tutu with multi coloured pom poms on the fringe was trying to eat a chocolate brownie. Not sure whether she liked it or not, it appeared to be accumulating in her mouth until it reached a point where she could hold no more. Then a chocolaty river dribbled out, down her top, onto her dress.
Dad and Grandad, left in sole charge, suddenly went into panic mode, unclear quite what you did in such circumstances. They tried to clear the mess up. But in the end the dress had to come off. 'What happened there' the Dad asked, 'Seepage' replied the child. 'Have you got chocolate anywhere else on you!' to which she replied from from out her chocolate smeared mouth a confident 'Nope' 'I thought we were going to have a truth day today' to which the Mother smirked and said 'Some hope' Dad and Grandad sat down with the stress of it all, as though they'd just survived a life threatening event.
March proved to be almost the same takings in the shop as last year. Which we happily accept with something of a thumbs up. Drawing a veil over the increased running costs and stock costs, which means this of course is falling short. But the dreadful Winter months are we hope coming to a close, with Easter being early this year we are expecting a better April. The weather is, however, not yet totally convinced and we keep slipping into perishing cold winds etc. As if a fondness for frost is this years favourite Spring accessory.
On our visits to craft and artizan fairs we are always on the look out for new suppliers or ideas for new lines. But a lot of the time it is just disheartening or annoying what folk think is a good idea. There is a difference between novelty and genuinely inventive. At the North Norfolk Artisan Fair there was one stall selling Man Soap, just man soap. Their marketing was to have all the packaging and even the soaps themselves coloured black. I found this particularly patronising, to the point of being an insult. Making cliched assumptions about men's aesthetics preferences vis a vie soap perfumes, that they'd only find it palatable if it were packaged in black. They might just as well have called the perfumes Motor Oil or Boot Polish or Grease & Sweat. Now, there's an idea!
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