Saturday 30 November 2019

Weak Ending

I've been feeling increasingly tired as the week has gone on. There have been lots of things to do. Friday was interesting- in the morning it was the school play. The children were brilliant - funny, tuneful, bright, entertaining...mostly planned. Two unexpected humorous moments. Firstly,when Robin Hood's band and the Sheriff's men were fighting.
They had a carefully staged sword fight- but the swords, although brandished with enthusiasm, never actually clashed. Halfway through, Robin's hat fell off. His opponent stopped fighting and picked it up, then tried politely to replace it on Robin's head. Once done, they returned to battle. The second moment was towards the end of the play, when the herald announced "The Old Beggar From Worksop" but mispronounced one word. I don't know if he realised quite why the audience was so amused.
In the afternoon I went off to a different school, to have a craft table at their Christmas Fayre. I'd seen an appeal for "different stalls" on a local social media page, and rang the organiser to ask if she was interested in "personalised gifts" She said they'd never had that before and it sounded good.
So I loaded the car with bibs and facecloths and my embroidery machine. I got off to a bad start- I was half an hour early, and even then couldn't get a parking spot anywhere nearby. Then I found I'd been put in a classroom with four tombola stalls [two bottle stalls, one sweet jar stall and one soft toy stall]. All of these appeared to work on the same principle- buy a ticket and you have a 50% chance of winning something. Almost all the prizes had been won within 45 minutes. What surprised me was the fact that the two bottle stalls were soft drinks [50p ticket] and alcoholic drinks [£1 ticket]- and there was no age restriction. Small children were happily coming in and wandering away with bottles of booze in their hands [is that legal?] I watched the comings and goings, but my bibs and facecloths were no match for the gin and cuddly penguins. I had just three customers. Once I'd subtracted my £10 table fee, and costs, I'd made a grand profit of £1. Bob applied the Micawber Principle and said £1 profit was better than £1 loss. It won't go far towards paying for my recent car repair though...
There were some really good moments in the day however
In the morning, as they were getting into costume, a pupil came up to tell me it was her Gran who had commented on the blog last week. When I went out into the entrance, to wait for Bob, her Gran came and introduced herself- Lesley, it was lovely to meet you. Thank you for coming up and introducing yourself. You must be very proud of your granddaughter's performance !
In the afternoon at the Fayre, I saw half a dozen friends, parents and pupils from the school. It was good to hear of the safe arrival of a new baby [I sent Dad & big brother home with a bib for the little one] and to catch up with other news.
I was saddened by the incident on London Bridge - my thoughts and prayers are with those affected. And I'm so grateful to Liz for sending a message saying they were all OK. She's very thoughtful about such things. 
This afternoon will be busy with the town Christmas Light Switch on. So the boxes of play costumes will have to remain unsorted until next week. I am learning to recognise when I need to take a rest!

12 comments:

  1. Angela, I, too, was sad to hear about the incident on London Bridge.

    I'm sorry your personalized bibs and face cloths didn't sell too well, but, at least you recouped your expenses! Better luck next time!

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  2. What a shame you put in all that effort for just a £1 - there is often no rhyme nor reason to craft stall sales, another day and another stall and you may well have sold out.

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  3. It's such a shame that your positioning meant that you didn't get many customers and sales. Still, it was worth a try. I would have loved a stall like yours! The play sounds brilliant! I'd have roared with laughter after the mispronounciation! I actually wanted to ask you about a possible item to commission you to do with your whizzy embroidery machine at one point soon!

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  4. I contacted my son who is working in London at the moment and asked exactly the same thing. Also, my car was in for an emergency repair yesterday too. Suffice to say, the xmas budget is now seriously depleted! I think you were up against it from the beginning at the school fair and I certainly don't think selling alcoholic beverages there is legal!Lots of xmas fairs on today but it's so cold and frosty I might just stay indoors and finish off a couple of projects. Anyway, I've seriously fallen out of love with my car for incurring such a vast expense!

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    1. The trouble is that these car issues often come out of the blue. At least we were able to put it off for a few weeks because Bob wasn't able to drive after the TIA so I had sole use of his car.

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  5. It is very easy to wear yourself out at this time of year so be extra cautious about looking after yourself.
    I work in a church office so you can imagine how busy we are at the moment so I am trying to simplify other aspects of the month and giving myself time off now and again.
    I find since I've really cut back on the gift giving (everyone of my family & friends was quite happy with the new arrangements) and since limiting my decorating now that I live in a much smaller place - that I actually get to enjoy the season much more.
    We have our children's pageant next Sunday so they are busy rehearsing for that - and tonight my church is hosting about 600 people for a fundraiser for our refugee support program. It is a reading of A Christmas Carol, (this year our celebrity readers are some well known opera singers who have donated their time) - the church is lit by candles and we sing Christmas Carols in between the chapters - it is a lovely way to start the season.

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    1. The Christmas Carol event sounds lovely. But 600 guests will take some organising. I really appreciate the hard work done by those who work in the Church Office. I hope you get a good break over Christmas

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  6. Hi Angela, it was lovely to talk to you yesterday. The show was brilliant and the costumes were great. Lesley P.

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    1. Thank you so much for coming to speak to me. We are very blessed to have such a great school in our community

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  7. Thank you for the Happy Nativity earlier this week - I shared the video with friends who all loved it as much as I did!

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  8. Thank you Kristen. There's some good stuff out there worth sharing!

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