The Return of the Craft Market: Episode One

'Durrrrr,' he said pointing at himself. 'Does this face look like I sold anything???'

I took his money and shrank back. 'Sorry,' I mumbled apologetically.

It was the end of the first craft market of the year and sales had been low. I was collecting money from the stall holders to pay for the rental of the hall. Clearly one or two people were not happy. I could hardly blame them. Despite advertising in the local rag, wallpapering the area with posters and Facebooking the event to death, still no one came. A lot of the die-hard stall holders are very philosophical about this lack of foot fall and take the rough with the smooth, although since the recession bit, it has mostly been rough. But still, most enjoy themselves. Clearly this guy wasn't one of them.

'This was probably the most depressing day of my life,' he continued to bleat as I thanked him for his money and apologised for the lack of customers.

Of course, it didn't help that one stall holder had brought music to end your life with. Determined that we were not going to have a repeat of last market's 'Yellow Submarine' fiasco when it was played on a loop all day, nearly sending everyone mental, they decided to bring classical.

So while it was a lovely day outside. The sun shining. The sky blue. Inside the vast and somewhat chilly hall, we had to endure a depressing bout of Puccini blasting out the speakers. It was then I began to notice that some of the stall holders had started to look as if they'd lost the will to live. I began to mentally run through any jokes I had in my head in an effort to cheer them up. But the only one I could up with was: 'don't let depression ruin your life. That's what relationships are for' I didn't think it would help, particularly when one of the regular stall holders noticed that an ex-boyfriend of hers was sitting at a table across the room.

'Listen,' she whispered - well to be truthful she was actually giggling. 'For future reference. Anyone in this post code XXXXXX asking for a stall. Check them out with me first.'

'From this entire post code,' I boggled. 'Just how many guys have you dated?'

'Let's just say it was a few,' she replied, dryly.

Then the stall holder with a penchant for music to slash your wrists to suddenly had a change of heart, hot-footed it to the CD player and we were subjected to the William Tell overture on full blast (the Lone Ranger music for those that don't know.) I'm quite sure hearing it, any potential customers must have felt the overwhelming need to charge off into the sunset. I was having lunch at the time. Cranberry and Brie sandwich from the cafe. Before I knew where I was, I was chewing in time to the music and bit my tongue. I wouldn't have done that with Yellow Submarine!

And then I found a purse on my table. As an American lady had managed to collapse a clothing rail of mine when she was rifling through and sent out a distress signal as she went down with the contents of one of my wardrobes, we assumed it was hers. One of the lady stall holders grabbed the purse and went in hot pursuit. Five minutes later the American lady wandered back in and we said 're-united with your purse, then?' She looked at us like we were one table short of a craft market and told us she hadn't lost it. Meanwhile our lady was lapping the building looking for her. Turned out it just belonged to a fellow stall holder all along. Our lady stall holder returned eventually with the purse - and an empty coffee mug - it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out she'd gone via the cafe in her hunt for the American. I then managed to knock the empty mug clean out of her hand and sent it crashing to the floor, echoing around the empty hall. It was probably the most exciting thing that happened all afternoon.

Anyway, I had a bit of good news when I got back home. An email from 'That's Life' Magazine asking for my husband's name and age.

'Oh, noooo. What have you got me into this time?' my husband worried.

He should be grateful. The last time I wrote a letter about him (Take a Break) he had his mug shot on the page right next to a photo of Tony Blair. Okay, okay so it was under the heading 'Aren't men daft.' But still -- famous or what?

This time I'd written to That's life. This is the letter:

My husband went to the hairdressers and while he was there the electricity went off. The hairdresser had to cut his hair in the dark and it was rather short, to say the least.

'What kind of hair cut is that?' I exclaimed when he came home.

'A power cut,' he replied dryly.

Boom! Boom!

Julie Driscoll stole my eyebrows!

Julie Driscoll has a lot to answer for. Julie Driscoll? Iconic 60s singer with short, short hair, needle thin eyebrows and painted lashes. Back in the 60s me and my school friends idolised her. Weekends found us vigorously plucking brows, razor cutting hair and practising painting on those incredible black lashes which inevitably, on us, looked as if we'd had a head on collision with a couple of tarantulas.

Years past. Julie Driscoll faded from popularity and we got on with growing up.
But we were forever left with Julie Driscoll's legacy -- those infamous needle thin eyebrows, because they never quite grew back.

I lost interest in make up. I'd slap some on if I was going somewhere special but being so busy with work and children my make up routine was usually a hurried swipe of Lypsyl before I swept out the door on the school run. As the years went on and the family grew up I had more time, besides which, my face seriously began to need more attention.

I'd put on my makeup, but it never looked quite right. Until one day when I walked past the bakery and it hit me. No, not the bakery, the mirror outside the bakery. For some inexplicable reason there is a mirror near the entrance to the bakery. Not exactly a good marketing tool - who wants to see their figure when they are going in to buy a cream bun?

I stared at my face. Why didn't I look right?

Ah! There it was. No visible eyebrows. Over plucking a la Julie Discroll style, my brows had never really grown back and my eyebrows were now so faint you could hardly see them and boy, do you need eyebrows. Just check out these celebs without theirs.

www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/celebrities-without-eyebrows-cg3

'Why didn't someone tell me I hadn't any eyebrows,' I bleated to my family.

'We thought you knew,' replied one of my sons.

They were there when I put my makeup on in the morning. Well, faintly there. I saw them in the magnified mirror. But when I looked in photos, it was true. You couldn't see them. And to make matters worse the Daily Telegraph then did an article entitled: 'Plucked eyebrows may reveal a personality disorder'

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2275331/Beware-of-the-narcissist-Plucked-eyebrows-may-reveal-a-personality-disorder.html

Not only did I not have any brows to speak of, apparently I'd got a distinct, diagnosable malady into the bargain!!!

So now, whenever I see a woman my age with two crayoned arches where her brows once were. I think 'Beware. Julie Discroll fan'

Let me leave you with a kiss

I have seriously got to stop ending my emails with a kiss a.k.a 'X'

I email friends and sign off with an X. But last week I signed off with an 'X' on emails quoting a cleaning job and ordering a banner off eBay -- both to blokes. My best hope is they think that's my name, y'know like 'Malcom X' or 'Jessie J' After all, plenty of surnames begin with X...um...like...Xavier?

At worst they'll think that I'm some kind of online floozie who sits at her computer in an animal print dress prowling the net, throwing out random 'Xs' to see who takes the bait. 'Oy, missus. Was you offering me a smacker at the end of that email?'

Maybe I'm reading too much into it? I should get out more.

And while I'm talking about getting out more. I spent a fabulous day at Caernarfon Castle on St David's day. I love castles. I can't help but try and imagine what they would have looked like in their day. I know castles were pretty much a masculine environment and women were few but there usually was a lady and her staff present. Whenever I wander around a castle I picture myself swishing around the towers and turrets in a long, woollen gown, edged in linen, bit of embroidery on it to make it look pretty. But, knowing my luck I'd probably be the castle cleaner!

Funerals

One of my favourite bloggers 'Inspired by Caffeine & Nicotine' has just written a piece about where he'd like his body to go after his funeral. I really like his idea of sending half of his ashes around the world in a chain letter while the other half are to be blown in the eyes of his enemies.

I was having a little 'Grrrr' moment at the time and, morbid as it might seem, it set me thinking about gravestones. What words would I like on mine? I decided on:

'She was never taken seriously'

My 'Grrr' moment was because I'd mentioned the cupcake business I have recently started (which I hope might one day be enough to get me out of the world of cleaning while I wait to be 'discovered' by a fabulous literary agent -- I can dream, can't I?) to a family member. Rather than give me a few well chosen words of encouragement, they said what I should be doing is making brownies because they had read of a woman who had made squillions out of her brownies. The point is my cupcakes are really lovely and scrumptious, I've set up the business and if I'd wanted to sell frigging brownies I would have made frigging brownies! Why do people always start sentences with 'what you should do?' As if they have just got to give you advice.

Of course, the other reaction I usually get to my cupcake business is: 'Well, I know a woman and she makes the best cakes in the entire universe.'

It's almost as if they are saying 'you can't possibly be any good at this?'

It's the same with my writing. Fortunately, I am blessed with a few wonderful supporters and you know who you are. The rare, few people who have championed my pursuit to be a writer and for those people I say thank you so much because generally speaking the reaction to my writing is somewhat different. For example, when I won the first short story competition I had ever entered people told me to enjoy the moment because it was beginners luck and probably wouldn't happen ever again. And if they didn't say that they said 'Yeah, well. I could write I just don't have time.'

Even now, when I sell a short story, people invariably say: 'Oh, are you still writing those little stories of yours, then?' Or 'haven't had any success with your book though, have you?'

One person actually said: 'Oh, you're not still banging on about wanting to be a writer, are you?

I have come to the conclusion that people have put me in a nice little box marked 'cleaner' and it wouldn't matter if I brought peace to the world, eliminated hunger and cured every known disease they still wouldn't take me seriously.

Before I became a cleaner (I became a cleaner so that I could be a full time mum) I was a P.A to a board of directors in London and then Office Manageress at a Japanese shipping company in Vancouver.

But that's a long time ago. Now I'm only a cleaner. That's how people describe me when I'm in their homes. 'Oh, it's only the cleaner,' I hear them say to their friends on the telephone.

And that is why I want 'She was never taken seriously' on my gravestone!

Chocolate

It was the end of a long, hard week of cleaning. My mind was full of words that I needed to write down. I was eager to leave my day job behind and get back to the world of writing. But first I needed chocolate. Lots of it. I popped into my local shop and scrunitised the shelves with horror. At the rate chocolate prices are going up I'll be needing a second mortage to meet my weekly fix. A small packet of Munchies in my local Spar shop now costs 85p! And please do not get me started on Curly Wurly's - years ago I swear they were a foot long (or is my memory playing tricks?) and now, well, you could swallow them in one bite. Well, I could.

I decided to look into this rising cost and what I found sent shivers up my spine. I don't care about the price of petrol (well, I do but, y'know it's not a life or death thing with me) I'm not that interested in inflation rates or housing prices. BUT when it comes to chocolate. Now that's SERIOUS!

According to the Guardian of November 2010 a single chocolate bar could cost £7!!!!
in fact, it already does -- if you buy posh chocolate. One thing is for sure, 60p bars will soon be a thing of the past.

The problem is the small holders growing cocoa beans get about 80p a day and there's no incentive to plant new crops when the old ones die off. It's time consuming (3-5 years) to grow a new crops. No one wants to wait around, do back-breaking work for minimal reward. It's easier to grown something else like bio-fuel crops. And with a life expectancy of just 56 years no wonder the younger generation are heading off to the city for better jobs. Plus, in some areas like Ghana and the Ivory Coast the soil is now so depleted of nutrients they can't grow anything. Production is seriously being decreased and the day is coming when the only cheap chocolate will be carob! Errww. Have you tasted Carob???

It's hard to inagine a world without chocolate? In anticipation of this earth-shattering outcome. I owe it to myself to eat as much chocolate as possible before it's all gone!

Dreams

Do you dream?

I dream big. Almost every night. Dreams with a beginning, middle and end. Like a movie. Usually I'm crime fighting or I'm in a spy thriller (sad, aren't I???) I wake at 5 a.m with a jolt and say 'wow, that was awesome. I mustn't forget that dream. It's going to make an amazing novel.' I lay in the dark thinking film rights. Oscars. Red carpet. And then I fall back asleep and two hours later wake up and can hardly remember a thing.

The dreams I usually remember quite clearly are the weird ones. For instance, the night before my operation a few years back, I dreamt I was trying to diffuse a bomb with a jar of Branston pickle! (I blame the sleeping tablet they gave me.)

I recently dreamt I was lost in Brooklyn, New York because I'd got on the wrong train. I went into Macdonalds to ask the way and who was there? Mary Portas, ordering a Big Mac (as if!) Mary saw me crying and invited me to stay at her house. Nice Mary.

Then there was the dream about Caleb Followill (please tell me I don't have to explain who he is?) Caleb took me drinking because, apparently, I was depressed. Anyway, I related this dream to my son who said 'funny that. I dreamt he bought me an amp. Nice guy that Caleb, isn't he?'

Then there was the dream about Peter Jackson giving me a part in The Hobbit. I flew to New Zealand to read the script with Elijah Wood.

And the dream about the carpet cleaning that came in jars. You poured the contents all over the carpet and micro organisms ate up the dirt (I should patent that stunningly brilliant idea!)

And what about the night I saved planet earth from alien invasion with a bottle of HP sauce? I made the aliens hamburgers and spread HP sauce on the meat. The aliens had an intolerance to tamarind (it's an ingredient in the sauce. do I have to tell you everything?) and they all died and yaaa! planet earth was saved.

Sounds like YOU should stay off the sauce, I hear you say. Truth is I very rarely drink. My mother used tell me I had an 'over-active imagination.'

My mind has no rest. My nights are way more active -- and exciting -- than ever my days are.

I recently watched the brilliant movie 'Inception' and would love to control my dreams. Perhaps then the day Owen Wilson (sigh) was waiting for me the other side of a bridge, I wouldn't have been waylaid by a person (male) I didn't know who tried to stop me crossing. I would have kicked him in the **** and said 'get out of my ****** way, Owen Wilson's (sigh) over there.' Unfortunately, by the time I made it over the bridge, Owen had given up waiting and gone home(story of my life)

Anyway, folks. I'm tired now. All that saving the planet malarkey I do in the wee small hours takes its toll. Night. Night.

My Catering Hygiene Course

So, there I was sitting behind my desk in a wooden hut. Well, I say wooden hut, but in reality it was quite a big wooden hut with posh toilets and an I.T room and I know for a fact it cost oodles cos one of the cleaners had a moan at me while it was being built. 'Quarter of a million,' she roared. 'And I can't even get a ****** new apron.' And then she pointed dramatically at the torn tabard she was wearing.

So, as I said, there I was sitting behind my desk waiting for my catering hygiene course to start when in walked six twenty-something lads. Suddenly I worried I was in the wrong place but it turned out they were all waiters. Now I'm proud to say I'm no fuddy-duddy despite my age. I mean I introduce my own lads to rock bands and take them to gigs and yes, I like to think I keep up with things BUT one of these lads had his waistband slung so low it was laughable. Y'know, showing seven inches of cheap-boxer-shorts-clad-backside. My mind boggled as to how he was actually managing to hold up his jeans because his belt was literally around the top of his legs. I had the overwhelming urge to dash over and pull his jeans up - but thought better of it. I watched him swagger over to a desk at the back. He swung his legs wide like John Wayne after a long day in the saddle, presumably his wide gait was his way of keeping his jeans up.

The course was interesting, I thought I knew everything. Turns out I didn't. I'm now paranoid about cross-contamination and washing my hands about every thirty seconds. But the hilarious dialogue between my tutor and our twenty-something waiters was worth recording. Here are some of the best bits:

Tutor: I knew a man who died when he ate a pie he'd left in the boot of his car over night.
Waiter#1: Well, he bloody deserved that then, didn't he? I mean what kind of idiot eats a pie he's left in the boot of his car?
Waiter#2: I would.

Tutor: How do you feel about eating in a place that has a low hygiene rating?
Waiter#2: Wouldn't bother me.
Tutor: It wouldn't?
Waiter#2: Nah. Cos like when your hungover, right. You don't care if there's a dead rat in the kebab shop cos you're hungry, right. So you ain't gonna care, right. Cos all you want if food, right.
Waiter#3: Yeah, would bother me, either. Cos like all you wanna have is cheap food, yeah. Who care's if it's got low hygiene? As long as it's cheap and you get loads, yeah.

Tutor: Have any of you seen these knives that are different colours so you know which one is for meat and which one is for vegetables?
Waiter #4: Yeah, we got one at our place. Piece of shitty crap.

Tutor: Did anyone see that programme on the television about what goes into a chicken nugget?
Waiter #5: Yeah, proper shit stuff.
Tutor: Oh, so you saw it?
Waiter #5: No. I can mind read. Durrrrr.

* * *

And now you know why some animals eat their young!