So Chantelle has now officially stopped working at Gordon’s Beach Lodge (thanks Whammy and Louise for treating us to a fantastic farewell lunch out at 96 Winery Road on her last day!), and quite frankly has yet to have had a chance to sit down and take it all in. She has a massive amount of orders to take care of at the moment, all of which will probably take her well into January just to wade through. (In fact, it feels a little like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire at the moment). Of course our triple market weekend this weekend didn’t help her baking schedule in the slightest, and while I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten what colour my kitchen counters are, I’m pretty sure she’s forgotten what her bed looks like!
Anyway, the point I want to make is that we just came off a weekend of three market appearances, meaning that I’ve started off this week needing a weekend to recover from this weekend – something which makes me long for the upcoming year end break even harder now!
Saturday was Willowbridge Slow Food Market as per usual, and unfortunately for us, again a real lack of foot traffic meant a relatively poor day in terms of takings, though it certainly was a slight improvement on the previous weekend, where we had seen our lowest overall takings to date!
(It was quite cute though when on Friday night, after arriving home after a long day behind the keyboard, I was pretty much in by the front gate and then straight back out with Jessie tucked under my arm, heading out first for a hour long beach playing in the sand session, followed by an impromptu shopping and electricity-buying trip, all in the name of getting the rather niggly Jess Jess out from under wifey’s feet in the hope that Chantelle could get a little bit of baking done before the drawn out bed time routine kicked in.)
Anyway, with Chantelle still desperately baking and Cheryl having to look after Jessica because my folks still being on holiday in the Kruger National Park, I tackled Saturday’s market single-handedly, and despite REALLY not wanting to do it come the morning (plus the broken lift in Willowbridge which meant trekking along the underground parking to reach the alternative), the dynamic duo of Mario and Marcel in the pie stand next to us did an excellent job of cheering me up, which means that in the end, despite not having a financially rewarding market like I mentioned before, I did rather enjoy the day.
So that wasn’t too horrible then.
Because of the dual markets pencilled in for Sunday, it had been previously decided that Jessica would sleep over in Bellville with Oupa and Ouma, which then meant that Sunday’s morning packing for market departure was a lot more smoother than Saturday morning’s operation, where we obviously still had our little tantrum thrower under foot.
Despite the heavy rain in the morning, the sun did eventually take over proceedings and from all accounts the Hathersage market in Somerset West was a wonderful experience on the day, with Chantelle even coaxing her parents to make the trip through to come and join her and soak up a little of the Marimba-infused atmosphere with Little Miss Jess.
As for myself, I made the trip through to Century City, where despite the slightly overcast weather, the people arrived in droves for a fun day of train rides, dog shows, live music and of course market goods. I had a particularly good day behind the stall, walking away with the most takings out of the three stalls that we had run over the course of the weekend, meaning that I ended up being pretty chuffed with myself.
Though still dead tired.
Sigh, at least all of Chantelle’s deli and wedding baking this week means I’m getting a weekend free of markets this coming weekend – which is something to celebrate it these days in my opinion! :)
[P.S. Should be fun. Hear that our dear friend Retha has flown in from Spain and will be staying over at us for a couple of days. Needless to say, I don’t think she realise just how much work Chantelle has planned out for her!]