Well, we’re home and dry. Literally rather than figuratively! Friday’s wintery storms delayed us to Saturday, and we arrived at the Welsh Coast MCC’s rally site at middayish. It took a little while to work out whether/where to set up and we decided that as the few people that had made it to the rally had decamped to the local pub, that we’d do our thing there. Once we’d got the permission we needed, we were up and running in a couple of hours.

Being the first time we’d set up our own self contained unit, it took a little longer than we’d hoped, but this should get quicker with practice. We came up with a few ideas to make it quicker and better, but I won’t bore you with them here! My biggest issue is the sheer volume of stock I now have, and being jewellery it’s lots of small items, which takes AGES to lay out. I’m thinking about ways to speed things up, perhaps by making some pre-loaded display things that just need placing on the day. Any ideas would be hugely welcome!

There were probably around a hundred people at the pub, and less than half that number in the beer garden, where we were set up. But of all the folk that came to see us, nearly everybody bought something. All the other traders that were due at the rally had abandoned ship because of the weather, but because we didn’t even ATTEMPT setting up on the Friday, we benefitted hugely from that. We donated a pair of lovely solid silver Celtic rings as a raffle prize, so I hope they’ve found a good home.

The really good thing to come out of the weekend (apart from making money, of course!) was that people from other bike clubs were there, and we were asked if we’d like to do their rallies as well. So we’ve got three pencilled in this summer already. We’re gonna need a bigger car…

A huge thank you to the Welsh Coast MCC for having us, a nicer bunch of folk you couldn’t wish to meet. Looking forward to the next one!