Last Friday was a bit tiring, understatement of the year, as we had to turn our Shepherd’s Hut round between guests before leaving for the Southern Wool Show – a Chas diary malfunction. The satnav lady announced that the M5 was a no no, so groaning we set off on the A303. It was slow, lots of deep sighs as we crawled past Stonehenge.
After set up had finished at 7pm we tottered off to the on site hotel at Newbury Racecourse, The Lodge. Now years ago Tom, who has very sadly passed away and ran Knitting4Fun, warned me off this hotel. Tom, you were right. Small room, enormous bed, nowhere to put a suitcase, sink plug firmly shut, blind broken. However there was a pouffe for Chas to stand on and wind the blind up.
Worse was to come as we ordered a lasagne and salad at the hotel. It was a very sad lasagne bearing no relation to an edible one. The salad was not dressed, a major sin as far as I am concerned. They brought malt vinegar and a sachet of salad cream, really?
After that things improved as the show was busy, we met lots of cheerful people including returning customers like our two favourite sisters. You know who you are!
Back home there were big wholesale orders from Denmark, Ireland and many alpaca breeders who had that Autumn/Christmas feeling and needed to stock up on socks.
Poor Chas had to jump back in the white van for two fibre collection runs on Tuesday, Cumbria and back, then Thursday, Northumberland and back with many stops in between. The van was rammed.
