Royal visit at the market tomorrow

IAfter the bread round, I got an email yesterday from the gardai to say that all traders on Thursday’s farmers market had to be at the parade at 6.30 am. Really? 

Tomorrow Prince Charles and his wife Camilla will be a the Farmers market in Kilkenny. Apparently they are goingto walk over the market as they move from the Castle to Cartoon Saloon. We will be set up by 7.30am and the market will open to the public by 12 noon. Until then you have to be cleared for security to come and shop or be in the official party. I do hope all those setter uppers and security people will be really hungry!!!!  There will be no access to the market to the public until 12pm so we are torn between curiosity and delight to be involved and the need to actually sell our bread tomorrow. Needless to say, the safelty of the Prince of Wales and his wife are the biggest concern. Another concern is that apparently there will be thousands of people hoping to catch a glimpse of them and much as we like customers to be able to get to our stall, maybe with thousands of people there, we’ll be grateful of the barricades yet. Anyway what fun to be part of it all and facinating to see a VIP visit close up. 

We will try and be prepared as well as possible, with warm clothing, thermos flasks and a table and chairs – to get as much paper work done as possible and not waste an entire morning. We have tried to plan ahead and been terrible flexible as the garda directions changed by the day. Seeing that we bake all our product fresh, we will not have an awful lot of bread with us for 7.30am. We start at 1.30am in the morning anyway so there was no leeway to start earlier but a handtruck has been bought

( which - none of my regular readers will be surprised – holds an engine at the moment)   and we will try and bring in the remaining bread on foot to the market and to the shops in Kilkenny that normally stock and sell our bread. None of these shops know either whether any customers will come into town or not. One day loss of trading can’t be that big, you’d think – but margins are tight and if we don’t sell on Thursday, we make a loss that week and that we cannot afford. I’m sure many of the other traders and busnesses are the same. The promise of some vague advertising does not cut it for us. We haven’t had a budged for advertising in a long, long time. 

Anyhow, hold the grumbles, maybe all those royal watchers will go home with lots of street food, fresh fish, organic meet, bread, sauces and olives and organic vegetables. They might cease the day and buy pottery and baskets and a boot full of garden plants. Maybe Kilkenny will be flooded with happy day trippers all day. We’ll find out tomorrow. Until then,  a very sincere welcome to Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall to Ireland and to Kilkenny.  Their visit is another big step in the ever improving realtions between our two countries and the particular history we share. I welcome these improvements and the peace we have started to take for granted and I welcome the Prince of Wales also as one of the foremost conservationists, environmentalist and supporter of organic farming in Europe. His famous garden and farm in Highgrove I would love to visit, I would love to chat to him about his ideas for food production and does he grow spelt? Who mills and bakes it for him and does he support the Real Bread movement in England. None of this is likely to happen during a “walk through” but I hope their visit goes well and achieves the many things, thousands of people are hoping that it will. I hope everyone keeps their good humour and I very much hope all our faithfull customers will find their way to the market tomorrow afternoon. Watch this space and I’ll tell you how it went next week.