My last post was a little bit of a tangent from the Earth Heart mission, in so far as it didn't relate directly to growing organic veg, baking vegan cakes, developments in planning permission or creative adventures in music or crafts. A project is ultimately informed by the life experiences of its team though, so recording my mum's death as one aspect of a very strange December didn't seem inappropriate in the least. Happily, there were other experiences in the month alongside funeral arrangements; a four week stint of Christmas markets (well, 3 markets and a honesty box special opening!) was also part of the picture, even if two of those weeks were somewhat derailed by storms and inclement weather!
To be honest, if mum had died the day before I spent almost £100 on festive baking and mincemeat ingredients, there's a chance I may have decided it would be a kindness to myself to cancel the markets for this year. Of course, she died the day after though and I was just too stubborn to let it go. Having said that, having an alternative, parallel focus for the month was actually pretty helpful and got me out of bed on a couple of mornings when I may otherwise have struggled to emerge...
To be honest, if mum had died the day before I spent almost £100 on festive baking and mincemeat ingredients, there's a chance I may have decided it would be a kindness to myself to cancel the markets for this year. Of course, she died the day after though and I was just too stubborn to let it go. Having said that, having an alternative, parallel focus for the month was actually pretty helpful and got me out of bed on a couple of mornings when I may otherwise have struggled to emerge...
We started the season on the 30th of November at the Workhouse Christmas Market in Llanfyllin (you may or may not remember that was the venue of the Food Fair back in September) and it was a lovely start to festivities. I felt lucky to be around many of our new local friends at that event, given that it was a little jarring, leaping from eulogy writing to carol concerts! We'd planned to attend the Christmas Farmer's Market at Lake Vyrnwy the following weekend, Nik's birthday too, the 7th of December, but that was sadly cancelled owing to the imminent arrival of Storm Darragh. Whilst I do my best to produce everything as freshly as possible, you'll understand that by the day before a market I've finished 90% of the baking (apart from bread and gluten free stuff, which is baked last minute and often obscenely early on the day!). That sparked a last minute scramble for an alternative event since there are only so many mince pies that even Nik can consume, and so it was back to Llanfyllin for the Christmas tree lights switch on. The tree was outside, I as very grateful to be offered space inside a local hotel who let us use their breakfast room as a market hall! We were disappointed not to go to Vyrnwy of course and I really wasn't sure how it would go, since the good people of Llanfyllin had already patronised us so warmly just a week earlier but I needn't have worried and they must have enjoyed their purchases, as we made good sales that evening too, completely selling out of veg to boot! Llanfyllin really has such a lovely community of people and they clearly seem to appreciate the Earth Heart products so we came away from those weeks with a resolve to revisit the Thursday street markets in the spring. | |
Organised events drew to a quiet close on the 14th of December at a pop up market in Llanyblodwel, which was the least busy, yet we took enough to make it worth the effort financially as well as an enjoyable way to spend a day! Finally, we made an experimental honesty box opening, which had been planned for the winter solstice weekend but ended up being the 23rd and 24th of December owing to more high winds making it impractical to open safely and unlikely that anyone would want to stop! We were hoping for last minute gift sales and Christmas lunch veg purchases, perhaps even a few final mince pies... But everyone was either well prepared or too busy to pull over so we had no passing trade. Thanks to the wonders of social media, I did manage to secure a couple of deliveries to (you guessed it) Llanfyllin, so we weren't left with any perishables that we wouldn't enjoy ourselves over the coming days. And that was that for 2024. |
We're feeling optimistic about 2025 and we're hoping to get a new website up and running in order to transition away from good old glittermouse.co.uk and give ourselves more opportunities for things like online sales and orders for local delivery. We're planning veg boxes, celebration cakes and selection packs of baking, which is obviously some expansion, but we'll certainly stay relatively small scale to keep the right side of enjoyment versus employment and save energy for creativity and (ugh) more planning application work. In the first week of January, the snow is lying thick and frozen, encouraging a degree of hibernation and certainly plenty of rest while the days are still so short. We'll mostly be making like the bulbs for some time, sleeping under fluffy blankets and gathering our strength for when the days get longer! There may be a new poetry collection in gestation too, which I'm hoping will be the first bit of real news for 2025.
Thank you for reading and for all your support through 2024. Rest well until next time!
Thank you for reading and for all your support through 2024. Rest well until next time!