Monthly Archives: June 2014

The wrong type of sun

Posted on June 23, 2014 | Leave a comment

The first GiD victim of the day

Do you remember last week I said that the collective noun for a group of traders was a grumble? Well, we’re still grumbling. You see, the problem is this. After all the wind and rain over the winter and spring, the weather now is just too damned nice. Everyone’s gone to the seaside I reckon, so at least the ice cream sellers and seagulls must be doing a roaring trade. It seems that us trading types are just not as big a draw as we’d like, not when we’re fighting against the Great British propensity to rush lemming-like for the coast when we get a crack in the clouds. To be fair, if I wasn’t working I’d be right there with them, so I fully understand. Just damned irritating.

Right, that’s enough of my whinging, what else has been going on? Well of course we’re out of the World Cup, though somehow that seems to be a shock to the tabloids. Let’s examine the facts:

England were in a difficult group containing three former winners of the World Cup including themselves
Both of the other former winners are higher in the FIFA rankings than us
We’re a team in transition so expectations were maybe just a tad high
Apart from 1966 (and a couple of gallant efforts since then) our World Cup record isn’t great
We’re just a bit rubbish

So how it comes as a surprise that we are out already, when we’ve played and lost to two teams in the top 10 of the rankings (we’re #11 at time of writing), frankly baffles me. Now I’m used to the blinkered patriotic fervour/rampant xenophobia that comes around during big tournaments, but the soul-searching and knife-sharpening going on right now is nothing short of ridiculous. We’re not good enough, we have rarely been good enough, and with the Premier League calling all the shots and breeding footballers that play for money rather than pride, we will never be good enough.

Did I say I’d stopped whinging? I may have fibbed a bit there.

Wimbledon has started today, and our great hope Andy Murray has negotiated the first round successfully. I’m not sure if he’s capable of mounting a defence – his form having slipped since last year – but I hope he does. He may come across as miserable, intense and humourless, but he is undeniably a damned fine user of a tennis bat and from what I’ve seen from interviews and chat shows he seems pretty unpretentious and dedicated to his sport. That kind of driven approach to being the best often leads to accusations of single-mindedness and humourlessness – but sometimes the best are the most driven. It takes someone truly extraordinary to be implausibly nice and brilliant.

It does occur to me though that if Scotland votes for independence in September, as Mr Murray would surely advocate, does that mean that the long wait for a British winner gets reinstated? 😀

Dolly from Raising The Baa

So back to the wonderful world of chillies. It continues to be extraordinarily busy – even if events are unpredictable. The week in numbers:

1 – new wholesale customers (welcome to No 12 Easton in Bristol)

1 – number of Olympic gold medallists at this weekends events

2 – horns on one visitor to the stall last Thursday. Hello, Dolly!

3 – words I have tried to keep out of the post after visiting the Cotswolds (bucolic, picturesque and quintessential, since you ask)

Kingham, land of spiders

6 – legs on most of the wildlife paying a visit to the stall over the weekend. Ants!

8 – legs on the rest of the wildlife paying a visit to the stall over the weekend.

30 – factor sunblock I really should been wearing this weekend.

83 – units of Naga Chilli Salt forged from the Crack of Doom last Wednesday

2 million – Scoville units of one of our new products

3.2 million – Scoville Units of the other new product, just in case the other one’s not loopy enough

Between days spent cooking, trading, delivering and catching up with paperwork there’s barely enough time to do the shopping. I appear to be on the J-Plan diet – all junk, all the time. I have been to the shops today and have purchased something called ‘fruit’. It’s all the rage in the chattering classes, I thought I’d give it a go. I presume you deep fry it?

One ‘joy’ that I had during my regular day at the Farm last week was to make Naga Chilli Salt. Now this stuff is a lovely, fiery seasoning when safely caged in its grinder, but none of us are rushing to the front of the queue to make it. All of the grinders tend to get a bit atmospheric during production and, unless you dress up like Jesse & Walt from Breaking Bad, you end up sneezing like a plague victim with hay fever. The Naga Salt, being the hottest of the lot, is the scariest – and of course if you get it in your eye you feel like you’ve gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Still, I’ve done my bit for now – someone else’s turn next time!

Just to show you how my mind works (OK, OK…) here’s a little snippet from the weekend. At the Lockeridge Fun Day there was a stand with some fabulous birds of prey on display. As is my wont I got to the event quite early, and was busy setting up when I heard one of the organisers tell another that ‘the hawk man has arrived’. I immediately expected to look up and see Brian Blessed, but no. I suppose after spotting David Hemery earlier (young people – go look him up on t’interweb) I should have been satisfied with my celeb-spotting for the day.

So where are we this weekend? I realise that I’ve a bit behind on my events page, so I’ll do some surgery on that this week if I can. Friday will see me at Lechlade Garden Centre, for another go at their Friday Food Fayre. This has been a very slow market so far, but the organisers have moved the pitches to right by the front door this time to see if that helps. I hope it does, Lechlade’s a lovely place and I’d like to see it work.

Saturday I’m on my travels again – Berkshire this time, to Reading and the Good Food event at the Hexagon. Sunday will see me at the Swindon Dragon Boat Race at Coate Water, where the big question is of course will King Gazebo finally meet up with Princess Pinkbox?

Other venues for our intrepid chilli bods will be Bath, Upton on Severn, Oxford and Birmingham (Friday); Bath, Calne, Pembrokeshire, Newbury and Upton on Severn (Saturday); Bath, Newbury, Oxford and Swindon Designer Outlet (Sunday). Unfortunately due to our inability to perfect a cloning machine I will not be at my regular markets at Royal Wootton Bassett on Saturday and Bradford on Avon on Sunday. We really are spread a bit thin at the moment (first time for everything where I’m concerned, I hear you all cry).

If anyone from either RWB or BoA needs anything desperately let me know, I’ll see what I can do to drop it round – I’m often on my travels and can swing by with an emergency delivery 🙂

They’re coming…

And with that, it’s time to wrap up for the this post. I’ve been watching Sri Lanka dismantle England’s batting whilst writing this, so if any naughty words have crept in I apologise. It makes me think that my season’s batting average of 1 (I counted twice, just to make sure) makes me suitably qualified for a late call-up for the next test series.

I’m off for a little cry now. It got a whole lot worse since I started that paragraph 😦

As a parting farewell, it’s a fond farewell and RIP to Nursey from Blackadder (actress Patsy Byrne) and Shaggy from Scooby Doo (DJ and voice artist Casey Kasem). Zoinks!

Till next week…

Oh well…who wants to live forever?

Dive!!!

Gorgeous stalkers

Posted on June 17, 2014 | 1 comment

Once upon a time, in a kingdom to the west, lived a proud and honest king – King Gazebo. He ruled over his population with a firm but fair hand, and provided shelter from the storms for all his subjects, often putting their safety ahead of his own. With his ruddy complexion and weather-beaten visage he was much loved, and looked forward to many years of devotion to his people.

But despite the respect and admiration of his people, the one thing that King Gazebo did not have was love. He was content, but alone. So it was with great interest and not inconsiderable hope that he learned of a beautiful princess, Princess Pinkbox, who had just come of age.

She lived in a kingdom to the north and was proud and haughty, with stunning complexion and striking pink hair. Could this be the one, he thought? Would his long years of loneliness finally be broken? It was with much excitement that he sent his messengers forth to arrange a meeting, where he would impress the Princess with his worldly wisdom and raffish charm.

But alas…the reply was not what he wished for. The Princess, although delighted by the King’s desire, had to rebuff his approach. For it seems that the King and the Princess, through the twists and turns of royal diplomacy, would never meet. Though both were much enamoured of the other through reputation, it seems that they could never, ever meet, and thus it appears that their tale remains a love unrequited…Princess Pinkbox would never be Queen Gazebo.

But then again…

So there we have it…there’s a new canopy on the block. The Pink Chilli Hobbit has finally taken the plunge and bought her own gazebo. And of course, in keeping with her predilection for all things cerise, it has quite a lot of pinkness about it. It’s the same make and model as mine, so will get the same admiring glances as she shelters from the blistering summer sunshine (yeah I know, but we can hope).

Summer is coming

Though slightly dissing the weather there, it’s actually been quite pleasant over the last few days. Moaning about the weather is a national pastime amongst market traders (the collective noun for which is of course a grumble), but in all reality there’s not a lot to bitch about this week. So of course we’ve had to find something else to whinge about – in this instance it’s the alleged economic recovery. Now I don’t know about you, but I keep hearing about this economic indicator pointing upwards, or that growth rate being at it’s best for yonks…but I’m not seeing it in the real world. Everyone is still understandably very, very wary about parting with their hard-earned cash. And to be fair – so am I. It’s a natural consequence of the economical mire we’ve been in over the last few years, and I’m not sure what will fix it short of a massive tax cut – which won’t, and in all reality can’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not moaning about my lot – I’ve genuinely having the most fun I’ve ever had in the workplace – but I’ve had to postpone the order for my yacht again. It’s just not fair! 😉

So where was I over the weekend? Well, once again I was in foreign territory – this time Ottery St Mary in Devon, for their Family and Food Festival. The pitch was a little challenging – basically on a busy thoroughfare with the back of the stall to the continuing traffic (tricky when the Harley Davidson Owners Club went past) – but there was a steady flow of customers through the day, and Devon was pretty keen on our stuff. I had a damned good giggle inflicting Chocolate Habanero on unsuspecting teenage girlies, thus getting some kind of belated revenge on being a sad fat wallflower back in the 70’s. Vindictive? Me? Only a little.

And there were Morris Dancers. May the Flying Spaghetti Monster help us, there were Morris Dancers…

Sunday saw me on home territory in the form of the Melksham Food Festival. This has a certain nostalgia value for me, as the 2013 festival was when I made my first appearance behind the counter for the Wiltshire Chilli Farm. After a couple of months out of work I’d had this crazy idea about helping Jamie out with selling his magnificent products, and as a taster session I came along to his stall to help out for the day. I can remember being extremely nervous, feeling very out of my depth, and really unsure about engaging Joe Public unless they approached me. Now, 10 months later (thanks to the date of this year’s festival shifting earlier in the calendar) I can sum up my progress in one encounter: one of my customers this Sunday described me as being more shameless than Jamie. Let’s examine that phrase again – more shameless than Jamie. For those of you that know our illustrious leader you will realise just how much of a stretch that is. For your humble hobbit to have gone from meek, mild-mannered introvert to shameless hussy in such a short space of time is both remarkable and alarming in equal measure. Penfold’s gone all Dangermouse 🙂

On the subject of this year’s festival, it was fun – but then it always is! No chilli eating contest this year (as they’ve moved the date we didn’t have the chillies) but a steady turnout again, maybe a bit lower than hoped but I think that was a combination of it being Father’s Day and also the morning after the night before…the night in question being one where England started their World Cup campaign at 11pm our time. I tried to watch it all, I did honest, but I don’t remember much after Mario Balotelli’s goal. In my defence I had been up since 5am, the Devon trip was an early affair

So were we any good from what I saw? Well yes, it looked like we gave it a damned good go. We attacked with purpose, scared the pants out of the technically more capable Italians, and were undone by defensive naivety and poor finishing by Wayne and his Amazing Technicolour Haircut. Still it was a decent performance and, with Uruguay being stuffed by the footballing superpower that is Costa Rica, there’s still hope of progressing into the knockout stages.

For those of you mad enough to have read this blog before and have still come back for more, a couple of revisits. I posted a couple of weeks back that I was being delightfully upstaged by a young lady by the name of Charlotte. Her Mum mailed me after that post to tell me that my tiny sales rival was really proud of her appearance here and had printed it out to take to school with her – I can’t explain just how good that made me feel 🙂 I also received a short video clip of Charlotte telling people not to double dip – priceless! (Apologies for the size of the video clip, I can’t work out how to resize it in WordPress…anyone out there know how to do it?)

I also received a second visit from our local aspiring politician Michelle and her chum Emma. You may remember they popped up in Chippenham last week and were delighted by their free lollipops. They didn’t grab one this time but have since tweeted and asked me to give them one…in fact two. And I thought I was the cheeky one! Always happy to oblige my gorgeous stalkers 🙂

I was at Potterne Cricket Club last week for an evening with former England player Matthew Hoggard. He came along to coach some of the kids, who loved the session even though I suspect some of them didn’t have a clue who he was. I always enjoyed watching Hoggy play – he was a top quality English-style seamer who knew his limitations with the bat. There was always something of the earnest, unpretentious professional about him – I just can’t imagine him launching Hoggy – Eau de Yorkshire cologne. I managed to drag him down to my level – literally – for the obligatory photo 🙂

So Game of Thrones has finished for another season. What am I going to watch on Monday night now? I may have to read a book instead. I hear George RR Martin has some good stuff out there.

And with that I will wrap up for this week. You can find me in Lockeridge and Kingham this weekend, and we’ll also be in Bath, Swindon, Oxford, Reading, Corsham, Chippenham and Devon. And that’s a quiet weekend. Strewth.

Have a great week, it’s nearly hump day already and the weather is playing ball…for now!

Life…good in parts, but no substitute for the real thing

1 Comment

Posted in General

Tagged cricket, Devon, Game of Thrones, Melksham, Pink Chilli Hobbit, WCF

King Gazebo is broken

Posted on June 10, 2014 | 1 comment

Phew.

That was a long, long few days and I’m not sure I’m allowed to slow down just yet.

Regular readers will know that I was somewhat nervous in advance of the single biggest event I’ve yet taken on – namely the Royal Cornwall Show in Wadebridge. This had all sorts of things that could potentially go wrong, given that:

I hadn’t done a show of this size before
I was camping overnight – and I’ve never slept under canvas before
The weather forecast wasn’t great
My van was crammed to the gunwales with pretty much everything that wasn’t screwed down chez TCH
There was a real potential for exhausted tetchiness on my part

So did it all go swimmingly? For the most part, yes. The camping bit worked pretty well. The tent I’ve bought for doing this kind of thing (as well as holidays) was really easy to put up, and really stable in the face of some rather stiff Atlantic breezes. And when I say breezes, I mean winds gusting up to some considerable gustage. The Showground is quite elevated and seems to catch the westerlies fair and square in the mush, but the tent was secure and I felt quite comfy in there, even when there was a terrific thunderstorm raging overhead…which was quite fun actually! My main issue with the campsite was noise – we were all a bit crammed in, and what with generators, car alarms, partying neighbours and crying babies it left sleep at a bit of a premium. Considering that, I’m looking forward to my next adventure in campology – I’ll just chose my pitch carefully.

Because of the wind King Gazebo took a bit of a beating. Our position in the show meant that the worst of the wind came into the open side of the gazebo, and this had the effect of making it inflate like a balloon, putting a heck of a strain on the sidewalls. One sidewall ripped its stitching, and several eyelets – pegged into the ground – just ripped clean out from the material, which is meant to be as tough as old boots. Now it’s not terminal, but item 5 on the above list certainly came to the fore. I suspect King Gazebo will need a bit of plastic surgery in the very near future, or possibly a transplant of some sort.

The van survived the trip well, not quite managing warp speed on the M5 but achieving decent impulse velocities nonetheless. A few coughs and splutters along the way, but when the engine’s done that many miles smooth running is a bit of a luxury.

So was it all worth it? Well I shifted a healthy amount of stock, learnt a hell of a lot about the way that these big events tick, and made a bit of money into the bargain – no more that I would have done at local events, but if you don’t buy a ticket, you don’t win the raffle. And of course there are the less tangible benefits – good publicity, more customers in a new part of the world, new contacts and new shows to be invited to, wholesale leads and a sense of achievement for a job well done. And, of course, there was the outside chance of getting a member of the royal family to try some out our chilli wondrousness – the Countess of Wessex did walk past the stall but I was too busy serving other customers to chance my arm 😉

Will I do it again? Yes, almost certainly – with a few tweaks. Same time next year then!

So after hot-footing it back from Cornwall on Saturday night it was straight back into the thick of local markets on Sunday – this time in Chippenham. I have to admit that I struggled to bring my ‘A’ game to this one, running on empty and all, but it was a nice day and I had a bit of fun. I did get to meet the prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for Chippenham, Michelle Donelan; she introduced herself and I think was taken slightly aback by my response of ‘oh well, never mind’! We had a brief chat about my utter disaffection with all things MP-shaped, but she promised me that she would be active in local constituency matters should she get elected – an aspiration I sincerely hope she lives up to. On the plus side she has a bit of the Kate Middleton thing going on, and both her and her equally lovely friend Emma were welcome recipients of my Free Lollipops For Single Ladies promotional campaign 🙂

The Pink Chilli Hobbit spent Sunday afternoon at the Snap Farm Fun Day in Aldbourne. This was one of those events that you never quite know what to expect – they can be amazing or average, until you turn up you can’t be sure. In this case the locals were friendly, the local brass band were playing, and there was cider on tap! It was, by all accounts, a ‘fun day’, so job done 🙂

What else is going on then? Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know that the World Cup starts this week. England have a bugger of a group to escape from, but if they manage to do that then the quarter finals are a real possibility. Now I’m not much a fan of the preening old guard in the England set-up, but they do have some interesting young players coming through that possess real skill, so we’ll see which version turns up. If it’s the exciting young guns playing attacking football, then I hope we go a long way; if it’s the dour, park-the-bus mentality that tries to grind out narrow victories from a set-piece then I hope we get knocked out early to save ourselves from further embarrassment. Of course as a Swindon fan I’ll also be supporting Australia – one of their squad, Massimo Luongo – plays for the Town.

I was shocked to hear of the sudden death of Rik Mayall on Monday, at the ridiculously young age of 56. I loved his early character Kevin Turvey, and The Young Ones was inspired lunacy. I never really fell in love with The New Statesman, but his fin de siecle Laurel and Hardy-esque slapstick in Bottom with Ade Edmonson was simply wonderful. Unsophisticated in a brilliantly choreographed way, it had me roaring with laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all. A great comedian, he will be sorely missed.

This weekend coming will see me in Ottery St Mary on Saturday, and at Melksham’s Food and Drink Festival on Sunday. The Pink Chilli Hobbit will be in Bishops Cannings on Sunday at the Farm Festival, possibly the shortest journey to an event she’ll ever have – it’s about a mile from her business unit! Other roving chilli hawkers will be in Oxford, Reading, Swindon, Malvern, Bristol and Moreton-in-the-Marsh. I’ve just watched the weather forecast and it’s looking like wall-to-wall sunshine for the next few days (OK, not raining at least) so come out and join the fun 🙂

Time to catch up on Game of Thrones before I work at the Farm tomorrow, I was too busy drinking beer with BoTCH* last night to watch it!

Have a great week, keep the faith and beware of the trund.

* = Brother of The Chilli Hobbit

1 Comment

Posted in Chilli, Football, General

Tagged Cornwall, Pink Chilli Hobbit, STFC, WCF

Whippersnappers

Posted on June 2, 2014 | 1 comment

Welcome once again to the increasingly loopy world of The Chilli Hobbit, a planet that just seems to let more loonies in by the day.

So what’s occurring, I hear you ask in a bad Welsh accent? Well, first and foremost comes another nail in the coffin of my attempts to pretend to be young and vibrant – my eldest Harriet is to become a Mum again, giving me a second grandchild somewhen in December. I’m not old, I’m not old, I’m not old…

It’s really lovely actually, and myself, Pink Chilli Hobbit and Aunt Jemima are all really delighted – and as you can see from the photo little Gracie is looking forward to being a big sister!

This is an auspicious week for all of us Kevins. For those of you that don’t know, June 3rd is St Kevin’s Day. No, I’m not making this up. Here’s the opening lines from a song about him:

In Glendalough there lived an auld saint,

renowned for his learning and piety,

his manners were curious and quaint

and he looked upon girls with disparity

It seems that our Kev was a bit of an ascetic (which I always thought had something to do with vinegar), but it means that he abstained from ‘worldly pleasures’. At one point is he is reputed to have drowned a woman who tried to seduce him, which seems a tad harsh. He lived his life fasting and praying, so as you can see there’s not a great deal of similarity apart from the name…although an absence of worldly pleasures is regrettably familiar 😡

It’s been a funny old weekend on the chilli front. I was at Temple Quay Market on Thursday, and as I know very well from my days working there for IBM, half-term week is very quiet and this was reflected in the sales. Friday was spent in Lechlade Garden Centre for their Friday Food Fayre. This was only the second one to be held this year, the first one at the end of April being held in rain so heavy it was what Sir Terry Pratchett would have called ‘an upright sea with slots in it’. Again it was very quiet, but the relentlessly chirpy and helpful Laura who runs the event has pulled a bit of a flanker by getting us a new spot right outside the front door of the Garden Centre next month, so we’ll give it another go before passing judgement.

Saturday was spent…wait for it…not working. I spotted that there was likely to be an outbreak of 5th Saturday Syndrome a while back…the upshot of which is that there aren’t many regular markets running that day. My usual ‘last Saturday of the month’ market is Royal Wootton Basset, but in fact that runs on the 4th Saturday, which is of course most often the last Saturday as well – but not in May. So the calendar had a blank day in it, and I didn’t look too hard for a replacement event as I thought it would be nice to support my old cricket team (Potterne 4th XI) and go and do a spot of umpiring. As it happens I was elevated to the starting XI, and took my place as number 11 batsman (1 run scored, run out by a furlong on the last ball of the innings by an overenthusiastic whippersnapper trying to steal a bye to the keeper. He’s a third of my age. He made it. I didn’t try. I know my limits). I was, however, asked to turn my trusty arm over to deliver the usual slow-to-dribbly annoying induckers, which I was more than happy to do. Six overs, an awful lot of creaking, a fair bit of swearing and two wickets later I proclaimed ‘job done’. In fact I took the last two wickets of the innings in consecutive deliveries, so I will be on a hat-trick the next time I bowl. That could be in 2015…possibly the longest hat-trick attempt in the clubs history. I’ll keep you updated on the outcome 🙂

Sunday it was back to the stall, in Frome’s lovely Independent Market. I’m constantly impressed by how superbly the town transforms itself into a delightful place to bimble about in – attendance is always good, and even though this month was pretty quiet for me sales-wise, it’s still nice to see so many people out and about. The market coincided with the Frome Steampunk Extravaganza, where there’s always a photo opportunity or two…

The highlight of the weekend was yours truly being soundly, comprehensively and rather noisily upstaged by the extremely precocious Charlotte, who, fresh from a successful career on the cake stall opposite took it upon herself to take over my pitch and try to sell chilli sauce. She’s not backward in coming forward, I can tell you that, there’s definitely a hint of costermonger in the bloodline somewhere. It was actually really nice to see someone having a bit of fun, she picked up the patter with remarkable ease and will definitely have a career in sales, I’m sure of that! If you ever meet her in later life keep your hands on your wallet – she’ll have every last note out of it 🙂

So last week was a biggie for the Farm, Jamie being at the Royal Bath & West Show. I get my turn at a monster show this week, I’ll be off to the Royal Cornwall Show with my glamorous assistant the Pink Chili Hobbit (am I allowed to say that, now that we’re not together? Oh well, just have 🙂 ). Visitor numbers should be up in the billions, and frankly I’m more than a little nervous, so if you see me there please be nice. I’ll try not to make a berk out of myself, especially if the stall gets a visit from royalty…though it might be funny to get the Countess of Wessex to try God Slayer just to see what happens. I’ve never been to the Tower of London, I hear the dungeons are just lovely this time of year…

My usual spots in Temple Quay, Tidworth and Devizes will all be covered this week so fear not people, you can still get your fix. We’ll also be out and about in Bexley Heath, Clapham Common, Shaftesbury, Oxford, Swindon, Bath, Chippenham and Ogbourne Downs. No rest for the wicked, apparently.

That just about wraps it up for today, I’ll leave you with the rather surprised looking lady on the right, spotted in Frome on Sunday. I’m not sure what she was laughing at, but I did have my trousers on at the time so it can’t be that.

Monthly Archives: June 2014

The wrong type of sun

Gorgeous stalkers

King Gazebo is broken

Whippersnappers

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