Wicked Wickham
Dear Ann,
On the last Sunday in the month, a huge market in a delightful tree filled park is held in the suburb of Wickham. When I first went there in October 2016 it was on the advice given to me by another stall holder.
It is a market where no stalls were allocated ahead & it was first in best dressed. I met a lady who goes there with her bric-a-brac & said she gets there at 4 a.m. to get what she termed ‘her spot’.
On my first visit I arrived three hours later than that, took pot luck with the sites left & set up shop with Christmas puddings. I did quite well in the remote spot left, far from the main hub of things.
Through one thing & another I did not go back to Wickham until late last year with Charley. We had both Chutney & Christmas Puddings & the results could almost be termed as zero.
However, I always think of what I learnt from my brother Peter, who said that if you look hard enough through the dark clouds you will find a silver lining.
This could not be more true of the first time Charley & I went there late last year with the Christmas Puddings. I did expect some interest from the volume of people who passed by but we soon became aware that our stall was not bric-a-brac, as ninety percent of them were. However, we did have a ray of sunshine.
A young lady approached our stall & started to talk with us, She stood out from the rest of the crowd as she was so nicely dressed, spoke well & was interested in us. Her name is Catherine. She explained that she had only recently come to live in that area & was associated & employed by the Newcastle High School.
In the course of our conversation she asked if we might be willing to donate a Christmas Pudding for a raffle to benefit the school. I could see she was a go-getter, someone with such a positive attitude & will succeed in whatever she did & to be honest she did remind me of someone I knew very well – me!
I liked her & realised that she was dedicated to her school & come high or low water she would be a success. I made a deal with her saying that I would give her one of each of our four varieties of Christmas Puddings for her raffles (amounting to quite a large sum in value) if she would work at getting sales for us. I just knew she would.
She agreed saying I would not be disappointed with my decision & I knew she would not let me down. Her husband, Grant, works at a school in Toronto, next door to me where Fennels Bay markets are held, so we arranged for him to call at my door & pick up the four promised puddings.
That was in early October. I also gave Grant a container full of tastings for Catherine to use as she saw fit.
Catherine used them very well & took them around to all the teachers at the school; used them at Staff meetings; etc. Every so often from then on she would call me to say Grant would be calling to give me the order for puddings that he had to pick up & pay me for those already collected.
I will never forget the day she called me to give me an order which Grant was to pick up from our Twilight Market being held that night at nearby, Speers Point. She said, “And tonight I am going to make you rich tonight as Grant will give you all the money I have collected for what I have sold recently.”
I was taken by Catherine’s personality when we first met & loved her great enthusiasm. As I said, I knew she would not let me down & she certainly didn’t!
When school resumed this year & Grant was back at work, I came home one day to find he had left me a Certificate of Appreciation for my invaluable & contribution of prizes to Newcastle High School Christmas Raffles. That was so sweet as I have never been given one of those before & the thought meant so much.
So, that is the big ray of sunshine to come from Wickham, which I term as Wicked Wickham. Since then I have spoken on the phone to Caroline who said that everybody has raved about the puddings.
In my opinion she worked wonders with the raffles in how she split the puddings up putting them with other things. For instance she mentioned how she put the Traditional Puddings with a plate, saucer, coffee mug, creamer & sugar bowl etc. as a little afternoon tea party gift. I thought how clever that was & we are both looking forward to a continued relationship for the next Christmas season.
God Bless You, I think of you such a lot. Dawn X O X O