I've had to have two long sleeps to recover from Saturday and although I still feel a tad fragile today, I'm fortunately much less zombiefied than yesterday.
Saturday was both wonderful and awful.
Wonderful in that we did amazingly, jaw-droppingly, eye-poppingly well. By mid afternoon we were staring at each other in disbelief and the customers just kept coming.... and coming.... and coming!
It was like travelling back in time to the heydays of miniatures fairs, perhaps 10 or 15 years ago, when the melee around each stand was 6-deep, and customers were literally throwing money across the top of other people's heads in order to bag a coveted miniature. If I hadn't known better I would have thought I had slipped back into the Twilight Zone.
Despite the weather, long queues built up outside Kensington Town Hall long before the fair opened at 10.30. As soon as the doors opened the Main Hall seemed to fill up very quickly, and within 15 minutes we were submerged under a deluge of collectors, intent on serious spending.
We didn't stop all day.........I didn't even have time for any of our delicious lunch as wave after wave of really enthusiastic buyers besieged our stand.
People were still flooding in up until lunchtime and the crowds were astonishing. From our vantage point up on the stage the whole of the Main Hall was a seething mass of people. Apart from a very quick dash before the show opened, to pick up some essential materials for my next project, I wasn't able to venture out from behind our stand all day.
The awful bit began at 5.30, after we'd packed down the stand, headed down into the car park, loaded up the car and set off home.
What had been a straightforward 2 hour journey in the morning, turned into a nightmare 4 hour marathon, in horrendous traffic (it took us 45 minutes to travel just the few miles from Kensington High Street to get back over the river) then driving wind and rain. Roads turned into rivers and at some points we were forced to drive through mini lakes of water which had pooled in dips in the road.
4 hours to travel 69 miles. Nightmare!
We arrived home at 9.30, absolutely exhausted and traumatised by the journey back. After wearily unloading the car we didn't even have enough energy to cook dinner and resorted to eating our lunch instead. It was all I could do to struggle upstairs and fall into bed.
Yesterday I could hardly move. I ached in places I didn't even know I had. The limit of my effort was to make a cosy nest on the sofa and snuggle down with Small Dog to watch films on TV.
Bliss..........
So, today will be a day for very gentle pottering. We haven't even touched the fair boxes yet, which are still in the hall where we left them on Saturday night. They're filled with mostly empty boxes so I have to sort through what remains and remove whole swathes of miniatures which have been sold, from the website.
The weather today is still horrendous.....driving wind and torrential rain so that is a perfect excuse (if one were needed!) to stay indoors and recuperate further.
In other news, I have the luxury of a whole 88 days till our next fair.
Woo, and indeed, hoo!
5 comments:
Glad to hear you had a fabulous fair. Seems everyone I've spoken too had a brilliant day.
Its been raining here for days, the river has broken its banks and the fields going into town are under water!
I'm so glad for you, for the Fair part at least. Now take a rest, relax and pour over some other magnificent mini which will make us happy and envious of your ability. Did the sweet little lamb leave you? Hugs Rosanna
Congrats on a successful weekend- I am happy that sales were good. I hope you get a couple of days to rest and recover now- perhaps the small dog needs a couple of days of snuggling? Glad you arrived home safely too- even if it took ages :)
Glad youmanaged to get home safe Sandra, it sounds like it was quite a hairy journey !
It was lovely to meet you on saturday, I had a fab day too and we travelled home yesterday, it was a long long drive , the most exciting bit being the mad man who decided to cross three lanes of traffic onto the central reservation next to services and then stood there waving his bags round !! the police were duly called and he was removed to safety but it caused quite a commotion !!
It was good to get home, York next week then I too will be snuggling up for the winter
julie xx
What recession! It seems that in the face of straightened finances people really re-examine what matters to them and invest in good things - like miniatures! I'm very pleased you had a good fair, wish I could have been there, though the crowds sound just a bit too daunting. Shame about the journey home - hope you've recovered now. This weather is really grim, especially for those poor folks in Cumbria.
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