Fabulous Eltham Pleasaunce...

It's been a pretty full on week once again, in fact it seems we often forget to give ourselves days off which can be a downfall of working for yourself when weekends are often work days.  But the good side of that coin is that when you do want to take off-days you can choose them based on the weather and the events that are going on, so every cloud and all that.

So all this hard work has been keeping up with tasks and doing quite a bit of freelance work whilst preparing for the 'Summer Sizzler' at The Tudor Barn in Eltham.  This is a Greenwich council run event that happens twice or three times a year on bank holidays and includes a range of stalls offering local produce alongside some charity and fair stalls with competitions as well as live music, BBQ and of course the bar is always open.
We had taken a stock of our jams, jellies and chutneys as well as our range of flavoured oils and some extras including toffee apples, flapjack and some recycled planters planted up with herbs or flowers all home grown, home made and looking fabulous in their smart professional labels.

It was great having an event on our doorstep as we have previously had a 45 minute drive or more to get to the venues but for this one it was 5 minutes down the road and the access gates were open which led us straight to a really superb bloke in charge of the event on behalf of Greenwich council.  There was a moment of concern when he realised we were the second company offering jams and chutneys, but made a top decision to take us round to meet the other stall holder and have a chat about the situation.  The other 'jam lady' was not over pleased to find she did not have a monopoly on the provision for the day but after a little chat, realising we were both very local and all home made she seemed happy with our offer to set up pitch on the other side of the pleasaunce.  It did give a bit of a damp start to the day but then we just got on with setting up and having a good day rather than worrying about competitive issues, after all our view is if people like your produce they will buy it however many jam stalls there are.

Timed to perfection we were all set up and ready to rock and roll 35 minutes later and the stall was looking great.  We are very proud of our home grown look rather than a corporate or commercial looking outfit with flashy banners and flags that make you feel you have wandered into the ideal home show.
The place filled up even before the 10am start time and just kept coming, with lovely people from all over the local area.  We bumped into a number of people that we knew, which was all very likely given I have spent over 20 years teaching in the local area.  All of them were really friendly and interested in our goods as was everyone that came to our stall.  Lovely humour and chatter, lots of compliments about our produce and people really admiring the recycled planters and loving them for their imperfections rather than commercially pressed plastic moulded perfection.  I cannot recall anyone trying our produce who didn't buy something and the toffee apples were a real surprise hit too, so many people telling us they havent seen them for ages and having one for reminiscence as well as the idea they could munch through the sweet toffee convinced it was good for them due to the crunchy apple centre. It was very rewarding seeing people walking about the park enjoying chomping into one of our apples.

One of the planters was bought by a woman whose husband said "You never cook with herbs" to which she said "That's because I have never grown any".  So it was lovely knowing she took away a herb box to grow on her kitchen window ledge as a new experience, and we hope her cooking benefits from it too.
But the overriding memory of the day was the wonderful community attitude of all the people who came down to the pleasaunce.  Eltham has for too long been synonymous with racism, a tragic murder and a sense of BNP thugs gathering outside pubs intimidating the public. Even during the riots of last summer with the burning down of towns all over SE London and not an incident of looting being seen in Eltham at all they still managed to attract negative press for gathering as a community and warning any potential looters to keep their hands off their high street. This is not the Eltham I know and love and so far from the wonderful togetherness experienced yesterday that it is worthy of as many column inches as can be grabbed by any local or national press, tweeter, Facebooker or blogger.  The community came from the Eltham Heights area right across Middle Park and into the edge of Sutcliff Park and the new Kidbrooke village.  The mix of backgrounds was fabulous, so many family groups spending the day together with kids, parents, grandparents all sharing the event and treating each other to gifts as they shopped.  The inquisitive questioning of our produce and that of other stalls was fascinating and discussion about what they planned to do with their purchases was lovely, they really cared about what they were getting and showed huge appreciation for our efforts to bring it to our local area.

Thank you Eltham for a great day, a truly wonderful community that makes us proud of our local area.