The alarm went off at 5:30 this morning, so my wife and I could head to the market by 6:00 to start setting up. It was still like night when we left… and it wasn’t helped by the heavy rain.
To take all of our stuff to the market, we need to make two trips in our car. I left the first load there with her and Scully to mine while I drove home for the second load. This load includes two large easels which I use to display large photo prints. The trouble is they don’t fit in the car with the roof up (it’s a convertible). The rain had eased off to almost nothing, so I risked it and put the easels in with the roof open. It was actually fine driving back to the market, although the rain started falling again lightly. But when I got there I expected to be able to drive into the tunnel to start unloading under shelter… but there was a queue of other stallholders waiting to drive into the parking area, and the parking marshal was being very slow in letting people in. As I sat there, not moving, the rain got heavier… and heavier…
Eventually I got in, and unloaded the gear. I had to use a towel to dry stuff, including the interior of the car. My wife parked the car and returned while I set up the stall. I made some space on one side for her dog bandanas. We were excited and hopeful.
But the weather was dreadful. It rained heavily and with strong winds. Although we were inside the road tunnel, we were given a stall right near one end, and spray from the rain came in and got all over our stuff. And there was a drain grate right in front of the stall, and it was overflowing from all the water, meaning that anyone who wanted to browse our stall basically had to stand in a puddle.
Some stallholders had obviously elected not to come today, as there were a few vacant stalls. I asked the market admin if I could move our stall, and they said yes, so we moved to a more central location, further from the rain spray. But that didn’t help with the number of customers, which was painfully low. Mostly we chatted with other stall-holders, lamenting how nobody was out browsing the market today.
Then at one point a really strong gust of wind blew through the tunnel, and scattered stuff all over the place. Other stalls had to deal with racks of clothes falling over, or artwork falling off tables. One of my greeting card display stands fell over, and all the cards fell out…. into the gutter where there was a stream of rainwater.
It was a horrible day. There were eventually a few customers – maybe 5 or 6 people stopped to browse through my photos. I made exactly one sale… of 3 greeting cards. It wasn’t even enough to cover the cost of my lunch.
The market officially ends at 3:00pm, but most stallholders were packing up by 2:00, with a shrug and a sigh and a “maybe next month”.
We got home and crashed, just watching comedy TV until bed time.
Tomorrow we head off on our 5-day holiday road trip up the coast. I think we need it.
New content today:
Sorry it went so badly, I’m sure they’ll be a good market day eventually!
Enjoy your holiday!