Mid Covid 19 lock down and I'm missing my Markets.
The craic, the buzz of a sale, the creativity of merchandising new stock and reinventing my gazebo for displaying summer festival vintage.
I made a flasks of tea to drink with neighbours for our socially distanced VE Day party and I realised I even missed my trusty flask of tea!
I miss my regular customers, we traders know you.
Even if you dont stop, even if you've never bought anything from us, we know you andyou're part of our day.
We will say to each other,
"You know, the tall lady who wears her coat inside out"
"You know, the chap with the endless coordinating outfits"
"You know the girl with the standard poodles"
"You know the bloke in the Monsters Inc. hat"
We know you all!
We feel your enthusiasm and support, just a nod "hello" once a week. You matter and we're looking forward to expanding that nod, seeing how YOU got through Lockdown.
But more than any of this I miss my market cohorts, some of them I dont even know their full names... Mark with the red van, glass Andy, Weymouth Sally, jewellery Jacky, but we come together from 3 counties twice a week or once a month, we watch each other's stall while they go fir a wee, we laugh, bitch, support and check on each other.
All of us have diverse backgrounds, ages, and politics but all with a single mission, keep warm, safe while we make a couple of quid, hopefully more than our pitch fee!
So I'm looking forward to moaning to and about them, because there's one thing that lockdown WON'T change and that's market traders grumbling!
But I wouldn't want it any other way.
Comments