The Great British weather! There’s always something to talk about! It’s our ‘National Conversation’, and if that term doesn’t exist, it should do! Anyway, the weather hasn’t let us down this year as a talking point, as you will know if you went to the Sheep Fair last month. I didn’t, actually. (Where I went would have won hands-down in the rainfall stakes, but then nobody had spent many, many hours preparing for an outdoor event there.) Anyway, even though I wasn’t physically at the Sheep Fair, I’ve heard plenty about it.
I’m always fascinated by the way in which adversity brings out a spirit of comraderie amongst us. Setting up the shop gazebo was difficult this year, but everyone rolled their sleeves up (well, maybe not literally in the rain) and got on with it. A further challenge presented itself when water started cascading onto the stock and those behind the stalls. (I wish I’d been there to see it – but maybe that’s a bit mean!) It took a team effort to come up with a way to limit the internal downpour. At this point, I’m asking myself whether it was wetter under the gazebo, or outside! Apparently, the card reader and till both worked despite the rain, apart from the odd idiosyncrasy, but that’s pretty normal. That’s some achievement – I’m sure that they stopped working altogether last year at one point. Despite all, volunteers persevered, and kept serving customers with a smile, refilling water containers (couldn’t they have just left them out in the rain and they would have filled themselves?), baking sausage rolls, and doing their best to keep things dry with copious sheets of blue roll.
Just as in the fabled ditty, ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, the sun did come out at about 2pm, but that’s where the similarity ends. Unfortunately, the sun did not dry up all the rain. Nevertheless, the good people of Findon came out, hopefully in wellies, and visited our stall. So, all was not lost. But it was a Sheep Fair to remember! Let’s hope they’re not too many like that. What amazes me, though, is how inconsistent the weather is from year to year. The Sheep Fair two years ago fell on probably the hottest day of the year! A distant memory now.
This month, in true storyteller’s tradition, I will end where I started. The weather. It is definitely getting cooler now, after a wonderful summer, and it is time to say a fond farewell to our ice cream machine. I don’t know whether anyone writes down the number of ice creams sold year on year, but this year probably broke the record. It was so hot!
And with autumn, come sweet delights such as Hallowe’en. The shop will be stocking all sorts of sweets and other goodies nearer the time, for all your parties and celebrations. This year, Hallowe’en falls in half term, so all the more reason to celebrate!
Jean Burden