Friday will go down in history as one of the most stressful days of my life - ever. I'm only just recovering. Not only did we have to go to Fibrefest but we also had to go to the funeral of FB's beloved aunt, Phoebe, before we set off for Tiverton.
FB & G spent most of Thursday loading the trailer and car with wool and general exhibition paraphenalia. On Friday morning they attached the trailer to the car (having left it in the garage overnight), wheeled it out of the garage and **CRACK** the axle broke and one of the wheels buckled. This was at 10.30 - funeral at 2.30.
FB and the BinL hurtled across to St Ives to hire a van and as they disappeared in a cloud of smoke from BinL's van FB shouted out that I needed to get the flowers for the funeral and, by the way, we've run out of chicken food. It was at about this point that my migraine really set in.
What FB hadn't told me was that he hadn't even ordered the flowers!
In the end, all was organised, migraine tablet was taken (and worked, thank the Lord), funeral was reached in the nick of time. The dress code was bright colours, Phoebe had a wicker coffin entwined with flowers, she had organised the entire event and, I have to say, it was the best funerals I've ever been too - in fact, considerably better than some weddings I've been to. She was laid to rest in Zennor Churchyard, which is a pretty good place to end your days.
There was champagne and Cornish cream tea afterwards which FB partook of (the champagne, not the tea) - I had tea (delicious scones and cake) as, obviously, I was driving.
Set off in huge hired van and - lo - the A30 was closed due to an accident. It took us over 5 hours to do a journey which should have taken 2. Nightmare. Reached the B&B, couldn't park in their car park due to scaffolding (which I hit) - 10.30pm - total sense of humour failure. Drove off, leaving FB running up the road after me - B&B owner left the scene pdq - she wasn't hanging around for our "domestic" - oh, no.
We ended up eating a curry takeaway in our room with a bottle of plonk and crashed out at about midnight.
Up at 6 because, obviously, we hadn't had time to set up the stand. Shot out (no breakfast - this is served from 8.30 to 9.30), picked up some sandwiches and hurled the stand together in the nick of time. Not how we wanted to do things but, needs must.
In the end we had a great day - met lots of lovely people and introduced some to the concept of environmentally friendly, locally produced organic wool! Lou Butt from Yarn Forward magazine was telling me about a couple on her stand who didn't knit, crochet, spin or sew - kind of makes you wonder why they were at a Fibre Festival?
When we got back to our room, FB suggested we relax for a couple of hours - I read two lines of the newspaper and the next thing I knew he was waking me up and asking if there was any chance we could get something to eat! He then asked me what my perfect scenario would be and I said the perfect scenario was him allowing me to go back to sleep whilst he went and got a takeaway. Didn't get away with that one but we did find a very nice Chinese.
Next morning (early - missed breakfast again - breakfast even later this day as the owner had been out on her hen night) we re-organised the whole stand so it looked like this:
Please note I am proudly wearing my Wool Britannia waistcoat.
The finale of the story was the phone call from the B&B the next day - for payment! We had left so early that no-one was around to take our money. I asked for a reduction as we hadn't had breakfast on either day. No reduction was forthcoming. We paid full price for B&B when we only had one B - money for old rope, I reckon. If anyone is going to Tiverton and would like the name of this august establishment, email me. We won't be going back.
Wow! That's stressful, indeed.
ReplyDeleteThe B-minus-B thing for full price happened once to me, too, also because I was up and away before breakfast was served. Bad customer service is what I call it...