Yesterday I had a stall at a craft fair in St Nicholas Church in Great Yarmouth.  I was at the last one in May; that time my sales didn't quite cover the cost of the stall.  This time I didn't sell a single item.  Most of the other stall holders also struggled, as there were too few customers coming in.

The Christmas Fair there is usually very well attended, as it is advertised extensively and is a huge event, with Norwegian Carollers performing and all sorts of interesting things going on.  However, yesterday's event was run by different people and obviously they don't have the same budget as the Christmas Fair organisers!

I didn't see any advertising for the event and without that, it's unlikely most people would attend.  The church, though a lovely old building, is kind of on the edge of town, not in the centre, so doesn't get passing trade.

The only positive things were the nice comments I got from the people who did attend (although didn't buy) and the fact that some of them took my business card, so hopefully will become a customer in the future.

I'm booked in for the Christmas Fair though, a 5 day event!  So hopefully that will make up for things...

Yesterday I drove down to London for my old pal Bryan Hartley's retirement party.  We worked together for 7 years at Globe School in Bethnal Green.  I was the Office Manager and Bryan was the Schoolkeeper.  Raani, also in this picture, was the Office Assistant.  The three of us were like The Three Musketeers - one for all and all for one!  We used to have such a good laugh together.

Bryan became Schoolkeeper at Globe in 1976 and retires this year at age 70 - a long career in one place.  I know everyone at the school will miss him very much.

His old schoolkeeper's house will now be turned into a new learning unit for the children, and is going to be called Hartley House in Bryan's honour.  No one I know deserves such recognition more; Bryan is a top bloke and has always done loads for the kids.

I couldn't stay to the end of the party as I had to drive back home to Suffolk - I had to be at the Beccles Farmers' Market this morning.  So I'm quite tired today after almost 6 hours driving in one day and an early start today!

I hope to be visiting Bryan in October though;  he hopes to be moving to Cumbria and I'll be able to stop off on my way to my holiday in Scotland.

This week my little sister Jane came to see us.  She only stayed 3 days but it was lovely to see her.  She lives in Lincolnshire and is a very talented Head Gardener.

She, Dad and I had a day out together yesterday.  I drove us to Pakefield and we walked along the beach to Lowestoft, where we had coffee.  Then we walked back again.  I hadn't been on the beach for nearly a year, which is a shame as it's lovely and we only live a couple of miles away!  We were inundated when off the beach by tiny pollen beetles, flying around and getting into everyone's hair and covering anything they could.  But the breeze on the beach kept them off whilst there.

After that, we drove to Gorleston with the idea of having lunch, but it was a nightmare.  We couldn't find the seafront and ended up driving in circles around the busy town centre.  There was nowhere to park, so in the end we just left and drove on to Great Yarmouth, where we had a very pleasant lunch.  Then Jane went on the Snails ride at Joyland (she loves snails) and I bought some candy floss to take home (I love candy floss).

When we got back to the car though, we noticed quite a lot of water had dripped out from underneath and the coolant bottle was way below minimum.  Back home, I phoned my garage and have booked the car back in for them to check it out next week.

As I mentioned in my last post, I needed more Grumpy mugs, so I've been busy and now have 11 in the kiln which will be fired tomorrow ready for the two events I'm attending over the weekend.  I also have more wall plaques as I was running out of those too!

Today I was once again at Pontin's - not a bad day, we had fairly good footfall for a change.

Returning to the subject of my car, it came back from the garage all mended and shiny.  Lovely!  However, after only a day home I started to hear a clunking noise so booked it into my own local garage to be checked out.  It went in yesterday and it turned out to have a broken coil spring, which had to be replaced.  It was all done by 4pm and it's nice to not have to avoid dips in the road any more!

Some exciting news for me - I applied to Potterycrafts to be in their gallery and they agreed!  You can check out the entry at http://www.potterycrafts.co.uk/PottersGallery.