Huh? An open letter to the Weather Gods

OK, I'm confused.  Please can we just take a moment and check our calendars.... mine says July...  now, I know that I'm not always successful and flipping the calendar over on the first day of the month but either I have been asleep for longer than I thought and we are actually now experiencing that wonderfully colourful of seasons - autumn - or something has gone terribly wrong.  Can I just check again, really - this is JULY!  The middle of summer when we should be basking in sun, wearing strappy tees and flip flops!  Not thermal socks, long sleeves, sweaters and rainproofs!!

What is going on at chez weather gods?  Have they gone away for the month (to somewhere sunny perhaps? If so, ha-bloody-ha chaps, very funny!!) and forgotten about us here in Blighty?  No really, they are having a laugh but I, for one, am not laughing! So here is an open letter to them from me....  

Dear Weather Gods

I get it, you are powerful, out of our control and telling us not to get too complacent and quit whining about being too hot and there not being enough rain when you send us lovely sunny weather.   Well I've got  the message so pleeeease can we have a bit of sun back?  Its July, not December and the time we laughingly refer to as summer.  Please, please, pretty please, give us a bit of a break.  You send sun to other people on a regular basis - have we upset you somehow?   

There are plenty of months in the year for you to send all this rain and wind and actually if you really insist on messing up our seasons then hey, I'm a reasonable person - Monday to Friday is a great time for you to knock your socks off with these extreme weather tricks but there are only two days for me to get out there and sell to the crowds at shows so that is when the sun needs to make an appearance please and the wind can have some well deserved rest.   Its a good deal - five days for you, just the two for me (or three if it is a Bank Holiday - four at Easter!)  I realise that you were having a laugh at our expense when you sent enough sunshine yesterday to dry everything off before the rain came again.   However, I am grateful that you did allow enough sun at the end of the afternoon to give most things enough of a chance to dry off before we packed away.

So, I encourage you to accept this very biased-in-your-favour-deal, it has huge benefits including the fact that everyone would love you again - and everyone wants to be loved, don't they?

In anxious anticipation

Love from
The person who came home yesterday very tired, wet, windswept and aching from having to hang on to my gazebo and dry off the table during the brief breaks in the weather only for it to rain cats and dogs again!  (Seriously, that really wasn't funny - now quit it!)

So, as the above will tell you, yesterday was an adventure and a tale of British Summertime weather!   We were down at the wonderful Weald & Downland Open Air Museum for their annual Rare Breeds show complete with cattle, sheep, ducks, chickens, bunnies and all other wonderful (and noisy!) animals for everyone to get close to and, in the case of smaller animals, even buy and take home with them.   What is normally a non-stop, crowded day was sadly affected by the worst weather we have ever had to put up with at a show.  

Strutting Chicken - perfect for all budding farmers!

When hubby and I arrived to set up at 8am, we actually got back in the car because it was raining so badly that we decided to wait until the worst had passed - and it was around that point we came to the conclusion that it is a good thing that we get on so well as we were likely to only have ourselves to talk to...  Eventually, the rain eased for a short spell and we managed to get the gazebo up and the tables in place.   The next downpour made it very clear that our normal table layout simply wouldn't work - people needed to be able to get under cover to stand and look at our display for any length of time so a quick re-jig was required which left us with very little room behind the stall to stack our boxes and have somewhere to sit and warm up with a cuppa and wait out the extremely heavy rain showers.

The show opened and....

...people came - in numbers!   

Admittedly not in numbers anywhere close to the normal footfall for this show but it was impressive considering the disgusting weather conditions.   We were very surprised and suddenly our anticipating £0 takings turned into making a profit! (Small, but a profit nonetheless and in the circumstances every £1 felt as good as £10!)    

There were some breaks in the horrendous weather just long enough to show us what we were missing before the black clouds loomed again and the heavens opened.   The ducks were happy and loving it but I think they were probably on their own!

Next weekend is a rarity - a whole weekend without fairs!   It is hubby's birthday on Saturday so a nice day off is planned to enjoy and have nice food.

I have been adding more rainbow designs to my Rainbow Collection on the Ali's Craft Studio website as I have been asked for rainbows on their own so these are my latest - simple but very effective...

Full Rainbow

Corner - Available as a single or pair

So, here are some things I learned this weekend:

1. Animal people are a hardy lot and it seemed it would take more than some rain and windy weather to keep them away. 
2. Keep Laughing! Otherwise you will cry!
3. No matter how much you plan ahead, there is always some curve ball heading your way
4. Plastic sheets to cover your tables are a godsend
5. Gazebos are not waterproof in heavy rain you need to prepare yourself for getting very damp and cold.  No matter where you stand, a drip is heading your way
6. Horse fence poles are brilliant for stopping your gazebo sides turning into sails
7. A hot shower is absolute heaven after a day of bad weather
8. There is nothing you can do to stop the weather - what will be will be!
9. You can only get so wet - once you reach that stage there really isn't any point worrying about it (the umbrella we had was actually used to protect our display rather than us - we were the only stall were the gridwall had its own brolly!)
10. The summer in the UK is full of fun and games - every day being hot and sunny would just be boring.   I'm happy for it to be boring for the rest of the summer now!

As you will see when you head over to Wendy's blog for today's Handmade Monday offerings, not everyone was as lucky as us yesterday - at least our gazebo stayed upright and we only got wet and windblown by the weather.

Have a great week - I'm off to repackage some stuff which got wet yesterday before sitting down and outlining a few Christmas designs (yes, I really said the 'C' word - in July - mind you it doesn't feel as odd today as when it is really hot!) as frighteningly it won't be that long before we start displaying and selling ready for the festive season.

Just before I sign off - I turned on 'Most Haunted' on TV this morning only to find they were investigating the same place as we were yesterday at our fair!    
Hey, maybe some of the hardy 'I don't care about the weather' folk we saw were really 'ghosties from another time' ....  oooh, spooky!