So, in October 2017, Keith started a blog. He called his first entry ‘ The Virgin Festival Trader’. He didn’t write any more. Eighteen months later he gave me the password and said , ‘You’re good at writing and have a great dry sense of humour. Can you do the blog?’
Actually, that’s not quite true. He gave me the log in details about three months ago. I’ve just been trying to work out how I can fit eighteen months of craziness into one blog-sized blog.
I can’t.
So I will have to give you the back stories as I go along.
But here’s a quick, general update for now:
We live in a fabulous little town in Derbyshire. It’s called Wirksworth, also known as Wusser or Quirky Wirkey. We are surrounded by limestone quarries and miles of footpaths with amazing views. I'm constantly discovering more local footpaths, even though I walk every day and we have lived here for over a year now.
We have our shop, now known as Two Wolves @ Number 17 and a room upstairs to do therapies in. We also live upstairs and have had to downsize a couple of times over the last fourteen months. We started off in a three bedroom semi with a large garden and outhouses, then moved to a large two bedroomed flat and finally to what is now a one bedroom flat with a tiny yard.We,ve also moved our shop twice too. It's been stressful trying to squeeze into a smaller space. Keith regularly badgers me to part with my extensive book collection, but then there's his habit of receiving regular Ebay parcels. We are getting there but, lets put it this way, we have a gazebo in our kitchen. It's not even usable!!! But more about that some other time.
Over the last two summers we hit the festival field pretty hard, going out almost every weekend. We started off with a gazebo full of gifts, incense, colourful throws and jewellery. Our style was high-lighted by quirky, wooden characters made in Bali...and a tribe of extra shiny bamboo ducks. The festivals that we went to were mainly custom Volkswagen events (that’s VDubs on the circuit). Our stall was well received and we added clothing to our range for last year’s outings. Although the festival goers loved the clothes. not everyone appreciated us selling them. Hummm.
We’ve met and made some great friends at the festivals. In fact, as we bumped into them most weekends, they become our festival family. We even went out for a Christmas party with our more local trader friends. They are all unique in what they do, making wonderful creations out of glass or driftwood, selling campervan gifts, retro dresses, gadgets to keep the kids quiet, groceries, vinyl records and music related gifts. They've even introduced us to the wonderful delicacy that is the Mars Bar toastie, And, as I love to 'big-up' my friends, I'm sure you will be hearing a lot more about them as I go along.
However, as things stand this year, we won’t be attending anywhere near as many festivals as we did the last two years. But we will still be going to a few of our favourites, mainly so that we can keep our places going for next year, when we are hoping to be back out there properly again. More about all that at a later date though...
Ah yes, and finally, there’s our little shining light, our bearded princess, Hetty Boo.