first day at school

I had my first proper market day on Tuesday and after all of the stresses and worries and problems it was AMAZING!  I literally have never enjoyed anything more (sorry Sam) it was vibrant and buzzy and fast paced…there literally was never a dull moment.  It was over all too soon and I was gutted when I realised that I had to wait another whole week before I got to be there again.  Setting up the stall was harder than I had anticipated as those boards are frikkin heavy and so big that you definitely cant lift them alone.  Luckily I had the trusty boyfriend and his rather lovely mum there to help out.  Sam’s mum runs a stall two days a week so her advice and experience has been pretty much invaluable.  We lugged the boards about for a bit and went through several different sizes before I found two that were perfect.  I opted for a hessian cover as I have brown package labels and crates as props and it all seemed to match quite nicely.  Another thing I hadn’t thought of was how high up the power point is, too high, as it turns out.  That was another job for Sam to compete with.  The rule of the market is that your stall should be ready to trade by 10am latest so we got there at just after 8am and started to set up straight away.  Its surprising how long you can spend fussing over the way a rope is tied or how your hessian is laying.  We were eventually done by about 9.45am which I was pretty happy with.  What struck me was how quiet the market was while everyone was setting up.  I had assumed it was going to be loud and brash with people throwing apples about and shouting “two fer a paaand” but it was completely different.  It was as if people were not only preparing their stalls for the days trade but also themselves.  It was peaceful and there was a sense of contentment in getting their stalls perfect.  The only real noise was from a guy selling records who was switching between reggae, Elvis Presley and what sounded like the entire dirty dancing soundtrack.  This all changed when tourists started wandering around the market, as soon as the first person stepped foot into the square it was like the market burst into life, as this is a Cambridge market there is strictly no shouting or touting for business but there was cheerful banter, music, the sounds of the sewing machines and smoothie makers and chat between traders.  I loved it.  As I said, I had Sam there but everyone was so friendly and we had so many people visiting us we shouldn’t have worried about any first day nerves, I had this dread about being “the new girl” but there was no sense of cliques or groups, everyone was there for one purpose and there was definitely a feel of all being on the same team.  When 4pm came around I couldn’t believe where the day had gone, it was all a whirl of meeting new people, tweaking the layout and chatting to people about vintage, I couldn’t have wished for a better start.  I cant wait to get back on there, the only thing I was upset about was having to go back to my day job!