Trading in Herbert Park in Dublin

Well here we are – trading Sundays in Herbert Park in Dublin. Even in the wind and rain last Sunday, you get a great feeling of community with gazillions of kids on wheels of some sort, with the soccer academy kids in stark blue and the hockey girls in green, with busy tennis courts and a bodgia or boules match in progress – competitors  dressed in white - calm and concentrated. Through the park cuts a tarmac path with stalls on either side. With about 15 stalls, most of which serve street food, we are enjoying ourselves and compensating for the early morning with an awful lot of food. Beside us is “Take the Cake” and we most certainly do. Later on in the day, pizza is called for and sausages, and dumplings and ice cream and organic fruit and a lovely bunch of flowers to take home.  The two student members of Speltbakers  are planning to take on this market and I’ll be glad to get my Sunday  back but for now – I am enjoying writing this blog in “Lolly and Cooks”,  the Park’s coffee shop and trying to get a feel for who lives here, who shops here and what bread they might like to buy. To make this trip worthwhile we  need to sell well and  the jury is still out as to whether we will in this so very different community to Kilkenny or Carlow.

An hour away from the stall, an hour of people watching, an hour of stopping mself from giving people unwanted advice. Like when you’re out with your kids, don’t talk business on the phone  and when your kids ask you a question, you’ve got to answer and do leave a tip on the table if you leave it completely ruined, requiring both a hoover and a wet cloth. So far, I’m restraining myself, and just enjoying listening in. My mother always prefaces unasked for advice with “somebody has to tell them” , I used to disagree but I now I am wondering sometimes.

Restraining myself, I concentrated on my own work and stopped listening all around me. I thought on  hashtags which apparently I need. Tweeting without hashtags apparently is pointless so # it is ( as it took me a while to find the #on my keyboard) I understand I have to cultivate specific # for  the business so #speltgreat will reflect the many times people think they are being original with “How do you spell that. #loveyourmarket will cover my love of local market shopping and .#greatfood will signify how much I love the shops we supply and the big array of really good food. So please  follow our blog, out tweets and our general idea and tell me what you think when you see me at a coffee shop listening in to anyone who happens to be close enough and wondering if I will ever be calm enough to dress in white and play boules and afterwards – no doubt heading home to a sorted life and drinks before dinner………