In amongst the bric-a-brac

Sunday 19th February 2012
Clear skies overnight and a slight frost

Last night we received a call to say that a table had become available for a table top sale in Holbeach Community Centre.
So I quickly knocked up a price list for our pork and dug out all the (virtually) free flyers and cards we had ordered a few weeks back from Vistaprint. A plug here for these guys. I don't know how they do it but, if you stick to your guns and don't get tempted by fancy frills, you can design and purchase some excellent publicity materials and only pay a modest delivery charge. Everything we've received has been very good quality. We've got business cards, flyers, lawn signs, banners, mugs, t-shirts...all the gizmos to build our thriving multinational concern!!

Everyone has to start somewhere, and on Sunday morning Sue and I found ourselves setting up our stall of jams, jellies, relishes and chutneys in amongst the bric-a-brac stalls. I had one end of the table for publicising our pork. We couldn't actually take any pork or sausages along - we'd have been breaking endless rules! I must say, I felt out of place and my first instinct was to walk back out and head home. But Sue is more steely than I so we settled down for a 3 hour stint in a very cold hall. We sold 2 small jars of chutney and a large jar of relish - one to the woman with the smelly ferret on the stall opposite. After the £5 we paid for the table, that's 70p profit between us. (I'm not including the petrol money as we were heading that way anyway, nor the cost of the jars, as that would result in a loss!)

BUT...we did get our faces seen. We chatted to several people about our pork, which I have decided to call PROPPA PORK. If it results in a couple of people dropping by the farm and even one of them becoming a regular customer, then it will be a morning well spent. In the old days I'd have spent a small fortune just escaping the claustrophobic confines of the big city.

It was very heartening to confirm that there are people around who still appreciate the merits of traditional meat. And, too, that several people had noticed our signs as they drove past.