Blooming Good Gardens at the Local Fete

Great fun yesterday, when the village held its very first fete in the park at the end of our road. I had a stall there, offering free garden design advice, and the whole day was really enjoyable. We were in the park by 8 am, organising the stall, and there was a real neighbourly buzz as everyone mucked in together to get things ready. I'd just struggled for nearly an hour to put up the gazebo, when I was told that someone hadn't turned up, and I could move to a better pitch, so three other guys helped me "walk" the whole structure to the other end of the ground. I think it was a worthwhile day, business-wise, mainly through the local contacts I made, but it was also worth the charitable donation required for having the stall, because it was just plain nice to see the neighbourhood enjoying having fun together, for such a good cause. There was a good crowd, right from the start, and we had a lot of people being complimentary about our new front garden. A bonus was that the weather was pretty good, too. Let's hope it becomes a regular occurrence.

Blooming Good Gardens at the New Forest Show

Last week was fun. I and four other garden designers had a stand at the New Forest Show. Business was brisk, especially on the Tuesday - the weather forecast was poor for Wednesday so maybe everyone decided that was the day to visit. We had many seemingly genuine visitors, and gave out sets of leaflets and business cards.



The week would have been perfect, had it not been for traffic problems. The first day I was on the stand, I lost my car in the evening...although I knew exactly where I'd left it. Security had other ideas though...and then on the last evening, when we wanted to dismantle the stand, heavy traffic, and an off-site road accident, led to grid-lock on the showground.