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Diary
Article 7 The Christmas Fayre.
The week of the Christmas Fayre, I had forgotten all about it until half way through the week, so with Saturday rapidly approaching I phoned the centre up to see if they both still wanted us to go with our books and to see if they could find us some space inside in the warmth so that mom could go with me. She used to love attending all the village fetes when I was trying to sell my books in earnest and still misses the events some years later. The good news was we could have a little table in the old café which was now a sort of rest room.
Before Saturday came I filled up a big box with a selection of brand new books and we collected as many clean bags as we could find so that every book could be sold in a bag to keep the weather off it not knowing what sort of day to expect. It turned out to be a bright and sunny, but bitterly cold day which unfortunately kept the numbers attending down a little, although over all the total figure raised for the days events was only slightly less than last year at nearly £1500 with the Café nearly reaching it’s own £500 target.
Due to the wet weather before hand the field could not be used for parking as people would have had to be towed out, so some of the volunteers were on car park duty to make the most of what tarmac space there was.
I don’t know if they had a barbecue last year, but they did at the earlier open day in the Autumn and as it was placed outside the building with the rest room in, and it had brought people in, but this time there was little to get peoples attention, so unfortunately some didn’t realise there was anything going on inside and a couple of the ladies kept diving outside to drag people in with the offer of a hot mulled wine, or cheese scone, to tempt them in. There were other things in the same room with us on sale such; - as aprons, bags, home made knick-knacks and spiced fruit juice along with a few of mom’s soft toys that she had made from her own knitting pattern book. The young children and some not so young, loved her finger puppet crocodile mitten and I am sure it helped sell some of the 20 or so books that we sold at a reduced price with all the funds received going to the Oak Tree Centre.
Apart from the room we were in the Acorns centre had several rooms open that were filled with planted bowls, wreaths and other things hand sewn from material like cushion covers as well as other goodies and a Tom bola.
The pottery shop had been stocked up to the gunnels with lots of pottery made especially for the sale as well as some things that had been made in the woodwork shop including a couple of stables with a crib scene and lots of old fashioned, chunky, wooden toys.
It was cuing only in the Café for a while as seats were in such demand and I was told that they had no trouble selling out of all the whole cakes, which had been made specially for the day. What they would have done if it had been a milder day I don’t know, but perhaps we shall find out at the next event, in the Spring, if the weather is kinder, when the centre has its plants open day at the beginning of May.
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