Sunday, December 7, 2014

Shush, don't say the 'C' word.

Our stall, looking festive.
Yesterday we had a stall at the Knockvicar  'winter market', notice the wording there, no mention of the dreaded 'C' word. Not once did we hear the word mentioned, 'have a good one'  and  'seasons greetings' was as close as it came.
The music was Irish Folk, no dreaded 'I'm dreaming of a white C'. Clearly the stall holders and customers were all like minded people. That did not however stop sales of things that were definitely seasonal, including our 'plum puddings' even though they were labelled as Ch------s puddings they sold well.
I think everyone enjoyed the day, we certainly did and we did quite well with the puddings, jam and my glass painted items.
Considering how much else was going on in the area yesterday and the fact that this was only a small event, just ten stalls it was surprising how many people turned up. In the local town there were two craft fares going on, a Bric-a-Brac sale and the  Farmers Market had double the normal amount of craft stalls.
Treebeard, we have to find a tree for him to guard.
For once I was very good and did not spend all our profits, I bought just one crafted piece of wood, he has been named as 'Treebeard'  once weather treated, he will find a home in one of our trees.
Every so often I lose my bread making MoJo, it has happened  with pasty and very occasionally with cakes as well, we have never been able to pinpoint exactly what is going wrong especially with bread and I will change the recipe, change the yeast, add milk, drop the milk. The last six weeks has been such a time with the bread, it's been OK but! We then got our new delivery of flour although we still had enough old flour left for another half a dozen batches of bread,
MoJo's back again.
I decided to use the new flour and, hey presto, the bread was back to normal. I then realised that for some reason the last sack we had did not get stored in the plastic dustbin that we have for this purpose, maybe we were to busy when we got delivery or just did not bother, anyway the problem is now solved, we are back to storing the flour in it's dustbin and we have moved to a smaller sack, 18kg instead of the 25kg that we normally buy, fortunately we have two friends that order from the wholefood catalogue so one or the other would have an order going in when we next need something.
Misty, now six months old.
The two kittens are growing well,
Freddy doing a Google search. 
Freddy however is twice the size of his sister Misty, despite his nearly dying when he was very young, they are super kits, full of fun and adventure, the rest of the cats all love them and Felix our rescued black and white cat is great at keeping an eye on them when they go out, not that any of the cats are very impressed with the weather at the moment, damp, windy and chilly, they seem to think it's all our fault.
The seasonal madness seems to have started, shopping trollies loaded to groaning point, TV ads telling you that you must buy this, that, or the other, or you wont have a good time.  All for a couple of days of indulgence, and in many cases to be in further debt. The shops close for just one day and  I'm sure that the shops will open again, there is no need to stockpile a whole warehouse full of 'goodies' much of which is totally unnecessary and will get dumped anyway. Our  treat will be the turkey, still running around on a farm a few miles away and a tin of fruit for the sherry trifle, we love a good sherry trifle ( ours should carry a government heath warning) which we will share with friends on St. Stephan's day, the veg will be from the garden even if our Brussels Sprouts have let us down again, our soil is rather too  light for a good brussels sprout, they will be good enough for us and we will keep trying.
Some of my glass paintings.
     

15 comments:

  1. Your glass paintings are beautiful. Why don't you set up a website for your crafts?

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  2. I love doing them Dave, but I have macula degeneration and am finding painting especially very fine work very hard and a further strain on my sight , I will probably go back to water colours or pastels where it is easier to cover or lose mistakes.

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  3. Your painting is beautiful Anne. Mine is what one might call, naively primitive impressionist. I know what it is meant to be but no one else does.
    Pleased that you had a good day. You are a very talented lady!

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    1. Thanks Irene, the main thing is to enjoy what you paint or do in any craft work and I'm sure people do know what it's meant to be if they don't then it's their lose or they have no appreciation of art!
      I have meant to ask you, do you have a blog as I can't find a link?

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    2. No I don't have a blog. Maybe one day when I pluck up enough courage to write independently. Thank you for the interest.
      A good imagination is what is needed when looking at my painting, but I do appreciate your encouragement and will continue to have fun.

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    3. Irene, you can always start a blog and keep it private or select who you wish to view it, think of it as a diary that you don't mind sharing or as a letter to friends! I use mine as a reminder of how things have cropped and when in previous years, or when we lost or got a new animal, and to compare the weather from year to year. have a go, you have nothing to lose.

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  4. Found my way here via Down to Earth blog but wanted to comment and say how much I love your glass painting! Such a cosy little corner of the internet that you've created here.

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  5. Yeah, a post! Participating in a small craft market would be cool and certainly motivational. If you want access to a bigger stall in a bigger market then you could find someone with a stall and ask if you can put stuff on consignment. I bet your trifle is to die for. Cheers Lynda.

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    1. Yes it was good fun but the main reason we did it was to support the Organic gardens, we were involved with them years ago when they first set up and needed organic certified manure to build up their soil fertility and the ph, the gardens are on an acre of what was bog land with a ph of 4 so hen manure was just the answer.
      The laws over here on selling home made food products are very strict, you can sell directly to a person but you can't use a third party unless you jump through as many hoops as they can throw at you ! I have friends who do several craft fares but they also do glass painting so there would be a conflict of interest there.

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  6. Your craft items are great. I grew up going with my mum to craft fairs (she used to sell dried flowers) I need to get into bread making more, I keep toying with the idea of buying a little mill as dad grows wheat so I can have it for free!

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  7. I used to do quite a few craft fares back in the UK, I did a lot of Aran knitwear and also made Victorian rag dolls, people in the UK have always been into crafts and craft fares.
    I think you can buy a small electric mill at quite a reasonable price now days. Even buying the flour it works out at around 45 cents for a large loaf so you save a lot plus it's just four basic ingredients, unlike commercial bread which has at least fourteen! some of which I cant even pronounce let alone know what they mean.

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  8. Dont talk about bread, i havent had any for 3 weeks nor any other grains and i craving some. I may have to succumb and use a pita as a pizza base. 6kgs have fallen off my arse in 3 weeks so im pretty happy with that. Oh, but i do miss carbs.

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  9. I don't think I could give up bread unless it was that stuff that is sold in shops purporting to be bread.

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  10. Love the glass painting. Oh and that "Irish" craft fair lady who sold me the mince pies - she turned out to be from Kent too!

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