Renegade Round Up

Phew, that was some weekend. I could have slept for a week after this weekend, it was fun, stressful, tiring and, importantly, successful! The picture above shows one of the quieter moments – it was packed for most of the weekend, so we were kept very busy. Definitely busier than last year.

I set off on Friday morning to the train station with all this. That suitcase weighed easily 30kg. I lugged it around by myself along with my 7kg banner and a big bag of metal stands. It’s fair to say I was puggled before I even got on the train! I had planned ahead and downloaded a bunch of TV shows to watch on iPlayer on my iPhone and had pre-booked a window seat so I’d have a plug point to recharge it – I’m SO clever sometimes.

I arrived in London later than planned and after a bit of will-I-make-it-or-not?, I dumped my luggage at my hotel and went off on my meat date with Kim and Adam, my stall mates for the weekend. I stayed at Club Quarters St Pauls, which is quite literally on the steps of the cathedral – it’s super handy and also pretty reasonably priced for London. I’d recommend it!

We went to Meat Market in Covent Garden – AMAZING burgers. Mine was so juicy I was pretty much just scooping up handfuls of it to shove in my maw. Delicious! After a swift half of strawberry beer at a nearby hostelry, it was back to my abode to iron tea towels and generally prepare for the market.

Here we are, all set up and ready to go! If you look closely, you’ll see a sneaky peek of our collaboration, too. I should have ironed that tablecloth, Jo would have killed me.

When we weren’t chatting to people, having our photos taken (I don’t think I got my photo taken that many times on my wedding day, never mind at a craft market!) or gleefully comparing notes on trade, we were eating some pretty amazing food.

Saturday’s lunch – salt beef bagel. I had this last year and have been thinking about it ever since. One of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

Sunday’s lunch – pad thai omelette. Cooked freshly. street-style, in front of my very eyes downstairs in the Old Brewery. SO good.

The market was much better this year in terms of visitors and sales for me and I was really delighted with how it went. I spoke to so many lovely people, but I didn’t really get a chance to have a good look round at any of the other stalls, only a handful of them. There are definitely people I wanted to meet that I missed out on saying hello to – maybe next year! It was great to hang out with Kim and Adam though, and see one of my favourite craft compadres, Anna from Custom Made, and say hello to Kirsty Lovely Pigeon and, and, and…

I got the sleeper train back on Sunday morning (not as fun as expected) and then home for a quick change and off to work. Such a busy weekend but fun in a tiring sort of way. My workspace is in chaos now though…