A Monsoon of Hailstones!

Good evening.  Today has been a busy day as it was a local Fleamarket Fair so we were up before 6 a.m.  at which point I was in a deep sleep having been awake from 3.30 till gone 5 a.m.  Anyway, we got unloaded and set up and then it was a busy day with lots of people through the door, but 99% of them had short arms and deep pockets . . .

A customer who had phoned to see if we would be there and asked to hold two items for him didn't turn up - we are hoping he isn't still ill after a recent holiday in India where he contracted dysentery.  Since someone wanted to buy one of those items this morning, we said no - they wanted it cheaper than we were prepared to let it go anyway.  (Update - he's just phoned to apologise and say he was too ill to leave the house, poor chap.)

By lunchtime all I had sold on my side was ONE thing - a Victorian hand-sewn "tapestry" (flowers) on velvet for the grand sum of £7.50!  Trade slowly improved but not a very good day, and it ended with me wanting to say something scathing to a rather stupid woman who wanted to buy a large Caithness vase of mine, but was determined to find an excuse not to.  She said there was a chip on the base - well, it was so miniscule it took some finding and you wouldn't have seen it without using a loupe.  I said I was prepared to knock a fiver off, but really it wasn't an heirloom piece worth hundreds of pounds, so really didn't matter at all.  Oh, but she was going to leave it to her daughter and she wouldn't be able to sell it because it was damaged!  At that point I had to Step Away!!

Anyway, the day ended with an "old friend" (stock which has stuck - sometimes for years!) finding  a fitting home.  It was an early 20th C advertising page from a newspaper, mounted and ready for framing, with a horse's head and Elliman's Embrocation and a long diatribe about its efficacy - it went to an Equine Vet, who was delighted with it and I was pleased it had finally found its rightful owner.

We were SO glad to be indoors - there weren't many outside stalls at all as the weather forecast had been for strong winds and wintry showers.  As many outside folk as possible got themselves set up beneath the veranda,  but a few were right out in the weather - there was a very heavy hailstorm just before lunch, and then mid-afternoon they were coming one after another - horrendously noisy on the metal roof of the large cattle shed where the Fairs are held and you couldn't hear yourself speak.  Then the temperature suddenly dropped and one of our friends was visibly shivering, so I hope she won't have caught a chill.  

I needed something warming for tea and decided to make a pasta sauce (just tomatoes, onions and red peppers) and pop some Waitrose cheese and smoked ham ravioli in it.  I gave it a good sprinkling of Smoked Paprika too, to make it tasty - but boy, it ended up like a Vindaloo pasta sauce and my glasses steamed up when I was eating it (I was reading at the same time).  

I tried a new baking recipe yesterday from an old 1980s cookbook of mine - it was for Lemony Apple Scones, and they were lovely.  I cut them with a small cutter and I will admit to eating 3 of them today (and having a boughten cup of hot chocolate to warm me up too), and they were well received by fellow stallholders.  I always have to bake as it is expected (and anticipated!)  I'll put the recipe up tomorrow.  Right now, I think a hot bath would not go amiss.  I hope you weren't knee-deep in hailstones where you live.