SHERINGHAM DIARY No 82 - Pending Spring

This second week of the Easter holidays has been challenging. We were set to open for our first Monday of 2023, but torrential rain meant that never happened. The rest of the week trade swung about like a pendulum. One quite good day followed by a day where we struggled to take literally a tenth of that amount, followed by another good day, then a bad, then an OK considering. In terms of our emotional engagement its been exhausting. 

The week after Easter has been a slightly better week than its predecessor. The weather has been sunnier, but often pretty cold in the persistent East to North Easterly winds we've been enduring for some weeks now. If only they would drop a way we'd probably feel like spring was actually here, rather than pending.

On Sunday, to change the energy, we took ourselves over to Aylsham, for a Mind Body & Spirit Fayre and a walk to Blickling Hall. The Fay-re had a scattering of  readers of palms, tarot , crystal or paint splodges. Mostly middle aged  psychic ladies dressed in voluminous florid maxi dress concoctions. Plus a gong bath, which looked like a huge babies play pen. The band, one presumed, were out the back having a crafty fag whilst we were visiting. Surrounded by the worst sort of tenuously related handmade alternative tat. Rank smelling soaps, signs and stuff made out of resin, hyper expensive crystals, bees wax candles, a stall pushing Slimmers World, and a guy boasting about becoming some sort of gold four star level gong bather supremo. It was either fraudulent or self deceiving, but either way a blatant rip off. We left with a deep sense of distaste for how unethical it all was. At least entry was free, as was leaving.

The walk to Blickling followed part of the Weavers Way, crossing at diagonals across wheat fields and bisecting neatly in half fields of rapeseed, but it was a nice way to approach the Hall. Once there, it was coffee and cake, then an instructive visit to a exhibition of various eras of printing machines. Checked out the second hand bookstore, where nothing grabbed my attention. 

We went upstairs to view the Creative Creations Craft Fair on the floors above the National Trust shop. We've seen this craft selection there many times and it is always an intensely annoying, if not dispiriting, experience. So many craft makers selling blousy country floral appliqué home ware bla bla bla. Plus the sort of thing that confuses novelty with originality, usually involving making lamps out of unusual things, such as cameras or brass musical instruments. To which I respond by saying - there's a good reason why we've never seen this before - most folk, if they thought of it at all, thought again. This time it also contained the ugliest standard lamp shades I have ever seen in all my born days. I couldn't for the life of me imagine what sort of interior they might suit, but maybe its the gothic boudoir of a drag artist who specialises in Bette Davis - Baby Jane impressions.