Newsflash!

First Official Event a Success!

That's right folks! The car boot sale so generously supplied with stock by Jo, Adrian, myself, Jen and Shirley (who used to cut our hair when we were toddlers) was a roaring success and even though we only expected a modest return, it was a little bit less modest than expected and was well worth the time and effort.

Jen arrived at my house at about 9.30pm on Friday having got stuck behind an accident on the A1 (no bad thing for me really as it meant I got to tidy the house a bit more and watch Eastenders before she arrived). Having not actually seen her in the flesh since xmas there was a considerable amount of "I love what you've done with your hair" and "gosh, what nice earrings" and a little bit of "shall we open another bottle?" which reminds me I'd better make a stew next week to put the leftover wine in (sadly I didn't make it to the bottom of the second one).

Anyway, after waking up with a hangover on Saturday at 8am I got up and had time to watch a film and clear up the kitchen before Jenfer surfaced - that student lifestyle hasn't worn off yet obviously - and we consumed a large amount of breakfast consisting of cereal, toast, bagels, croissants and pain aux chocolate (sp?) before deciding that it was about time we got around to sorting out the stock situation and working out how the flippin' 'eck we were going to fit it all in the car. At this point we realised we had a crisis - no table!!!

After much debate about boxes, we decided on a two-pronged approach.

1. Six normal sized boxes in three columns of two supporting a very long thin box which my (now stolen) bicycle arrived in, with a rather nice green tablecloth over the top (which was supposed to be going over my nice new garden furniture the next time I have a barbecue).
2. Two normal sized boxes supporting a smaller but similarly shaped box in which my lovely faux suede (thanks MFI) dining chairs arrived in (I told SYM they would come in handy), this time simply opened containing our goods rather than covered with them on the top.
   

We agreed this strategy with the minimum of fuss and argument (my, we must be growing up) and continuted sorting out the stuff - and actually managed to find about a fiver's worth of each other's stuff that we quite fancied having, so we retreived that and put £10 in the pot which nicely covered the cost of the pitch. We came accross some really good items that we retreived to sell on ebay instead - one item of note was a WWII Soldier's Record and Pay Book which I don't think was in the box intentionally and I intend to return to it's rightful owner - can't let a little piece of history like that disappear at a car boot sale. Or am I just being a history nerd?

Anyway, the nice stuff got separated for a table top sale my mum is hoping to have as part of her Raleigh Coffee Morning - you have to have a higher class of jumble for the ladies wot lunch. The rest was all boxed up and shoved in the car, and we were all set!

Imagine my surprise then, when I got up at 6am to find that little smelly was already in the bathroom - what a departure from the previous morning! I sloped off downstairs to start the breakfast and related washing up, and when she surfaced, promoted her to Chief Tea Maker and nipped off to the shower. I even had time to straighten my hair before we clambered into the car and off we went.

Before we'd even got the stuff out of the car and the table set up there were fellow car-booters rooting around in our boot. I know we were there to sell stuff but even so I found this more than a little odd, and with the recent sticky fingeredness of some thieving little youknowwhats where my bike was concerned, we kept a close eye on the takings tin. Anyway, once the table was up only had one little accident when the positioning of the columns under the main table were incorrect and caused the whole thing to topple over. Thankfully Jenfer was in the way and managed to catch all but one rather nasty blue aromatherapy candle in a jar, which no one would have wanted anyway. A little bit of re-jigging and the Grand Sale opened!

Well I must say the phrase one man's trash is another man's treasure is really true. We sold an amazing amount of stuff. We got rid of almost all the books and more than a few items of clothing. A dance mat went for a few quid to a fella whose two boys had practically bankrupted him in the previous two hours. We sold some of my grandma's old belts for 50p each, and a young boy of about 10 bought three language courses - French, German and Dutch. I don't know what a 10 year old wants with three language courses, but he seemed pretty determinded, so good luck to him. We got rid of the fake space hopper for £1.75 to a woman absolutely determined not to pay £2 for it; one fella bought 10 of my History magazines for 20p each - I can't decide whether I should have told him that I'd already done the crossword, but it's too late now.

The process of a car boot sale however is pretty boring I must say. Although in traditional Kate fashion I had prepared a large flask of tea and provisions in advance, we'd eaten all the ship's biscuits by 10am and the marmite sandwiches were gone by 10.30. And tea made in a flask always tastes of flask.

Anyway, after having been there for 5 and a half hours and having no idea how much we'd made, things started quietening down and people started to leave. We packed up what was left (a children's potter's wheel, a few books, clothes and videos, and rather a lot of candles) and brought it home. A quick tot up of the takings revealed that we had made....

...drumroll please....

£72.20!

Not going to set the world alight, no, but add on the gift aid and I make that approximately £92.50! Which means that we have a grand total of...

...over £1000!We're a third of the way there!

WUHOO!

Alright, so I don't know what the grand total is. But Jenfer's got the rest! She'll have to add it up!

So a big thank you to everyone who gave us some stuff. It's really appreciated and was well worth it. However, a friend of mine did point out that we would only have to do another 40.5 to raise the entire amount. I'm glad we're not *just* doing car boot sales. I'd have nothing left!