The market was exceptionally busy on Saturday and all the other stallholders sold out too, meaning everyone was exceedingly happy.
That was why Berry had suggested we should go for that quick drink in The Dog and Duck. The quick drink that had turned into a long and drunken night, and left me with a bit of a hangover this morning.
I had met Berry and her brother, Paul, back in April when, in addition to selling my decorations online, I had also rented a stall at the Fairlight Bay Market.
I had never done anything like that before, having spent most of my working life in an office and then later, having run my fledgeling business of Midwinter Cottage Decorations, from my kitchen table, via my laptop.
So manning a stall in a public market was a somewhat daunting experience, and to help ease me in to being a market stall trader, Madi had come and spent a few days with me, leaving Tristan at home in Somerset to continue running their own business.
To repay that favour, I had gone to Somerset to stay at Apple Orchard Farm for two weeks in September to help with the apple harvest. I don’t recall too much about those two weeks, to be honest, apart from the fact that it was wonderful to spend so much time with Madi again, but I do remember that the cider we drank was delicious. My drink of choice is wine, but I must confess that I drank rather a lot of cider during those two weeks.
Well, someone had to sample the goods, didn’t they?
Actually, I didn’t, because the cider we drank then was cider that had been pressed by the former owner and sold with the property.
I wouldn’t be able to sample Tristan and Madi’s Apple Orchard Farm Cider until this New Year when the cider made from the apples I helped pick in September would just about be ready to drink.
Tristan assured me that their Apple Orchard Farm Cider would be even better as he had been working on recipes and hadtweaked it from the original one. I would get to taste some when I went to stay with them at New Year, and I was already looking forward to it.
Madi, of course, had also never worked on a market stall, so on that first Thursday in April, we were both completely out of our depths. Berry had the stall next to mine and was selling handmade soaps, bath products, and lotions made from all natural ingredients. Some of her soaps were shaped like fruits such as strawberries, apples, and pears, and they all looked good enough to eat. Although I didn’t try to. However natural and mainly organic they might have been, soap was still soap as far as I was concerned.
But luckily for me, and for Madi on that first day, Berry took pity on us and showed us the ropes. She taught me how to encourage shoppers to stop at my stall. What to say to them if they were dithering about a purchase. How to seal the deal, and how to ensure I obtained either an email address or a contact number, so that I could send them offers and news of new products.
When her brother Paul arrived to help her pack up, and to give her a lift home because her own car had broken down, they also showed us The Dog and Duck pub which I had never been to before. It was hidden behind Market Square and approached via a twitten, or a cat creep as they are also called in Fairlight Bay. Basically that’s a narrow passageway between two buildings, often, but not always, with steps. The twitten leading from Market Square to The Dog and Duck pub was narrow and dark because the upper storeys of the old buildings overhung the passageway. The ground floors housed an art and craft shop on one side, and an antiques store on the other. The twitten led out into another, smaller square with the pub, a former stable, and more antique shops fronting the square. I thought I knew all the hidden gems in town, but I must’ve missed this one.
That was the first drunken night of many. Berry certainly liked a drink. Paul hardly drank at all and was, and has been ever since, the designated driver. Which was why I had assumed that it was he who brought me home last night.
Having now decided an earlier visit to my parents was the best option today, I would need to rethink the rest of my day.
I always had my decorations up, on or around the first of December. Even when I moved last year, they were up, inside and out by the second. Although I did have help from the removal team last year. But this year, I had been so busy running my business that I hadn’t even thought about my own decorations until Friday, when I got them down from the loft.
I started with the outdoor decorations, placing my Christmas silhouettes of a snowman, a deer, and a singing penguin, on the front lawn. I positioned my candy cane path lights either side of my path, hung my handmade wreath on the front door, and fixed my boughs of holly and pine, entwined with Christmas lights, around the door frame and along the downstairs window sills. I also managed to trim the upstairs window sills to match those downstairs, but to hang the rest of the lights, I needed a ladder. I had one in the garden shed but by the time I’d done everything else it was getting dark and I wasn’t climbing a ladder on my own in the dark, in case I fell off.
There wasn’t that much left to do as far as the outdoor decorations were concerned, but as I was at the Christmas Market all day yesterday, I had planned to finish the outside lights today. The problem with the heating had thrown my schedule off balance though.
My original plan had been to get up early, make the Christmas decorations I needed for my business, and then get the ladder from the shed and finish hanging the lights on the cottage, and decorating the evergreen conifer tree that was growing in the centre of one side of my front lawn, with lights and outdoorbaubles. That would have to wait until the afternoon, when I got back from my parents’ house.
There was a lot to do inside, so my decorations would be late this year. Especially as I also needed to get some Christmas decorations made for my business. If I started those now, I wouldn’t want to stop, and I couldn’t be late for Sunday lunch. Mum would never forgive me. No. Going to their house early, having my longed for second mug of coffee, and asking if I could stay if needed, was my best option now.
I turned off the heating, hoping it would come back on when I returned, threw on my coat, hat, scarf, gloves, and boots, and opened the front door.
A blast of arctic air hit me full in the face and took my breath away for a moment. It was colder than I had thought and the wind was bitter this morning. There was no way I was putting outdoor decorations up in this, unless the weather changed this afternoon.
Perhaps I should’ve left the heating on. Knowing my luck, the pipes would freeze up, burst, and flood the cottage.
‘What is wrong with you, Noelle?’ I chastised myself. I was usually an optimist and looked on the bright side no matter what, not a pessimist who decided that everything would be a disaster even when it wasn’t.
Perhaps it was my hangover.
And on that subject, I reminded myself to phone Berry and ask who had brought me home last night. But more importantly, whether I was still fully clothed when whomever it was, had left.
Three
‘Perhaps your father could take a look?’ Mum said when I told her about the problem with my heating, and my faulty tap.
I’m not sure if she was questioning herself, Dad’s DIY skills, or my desperation, but knowing that Dad was about as handy as me when it came to DIY, I thought she was joking – and laughed.
Dad, who had already quirked a brow but had pretended not to hear Mum’s comment and had continued to read the Sunday papers, shot me a look, and grinned. We both knew there was no way he was going to take a look at my heating problem.
