Tag Archives: WCF

It’s been a year

Posted on July 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

A year since what, I hear you ask?

Well, it was early in July 2013 when I took my last salary from the corporate world. After a 26 year career in IT I took the plunge into – well, initially – jobseeking. It didn’t take me long to realise that the decision I’d taken some years earlier – to take a step away from the deeply technical side of IT and into management – had made things tricky. There has been a trend amongst the big corporates to promote technical consultants into management roles and expect them to carry on their technical roles, whilst doing the management bit as well. Now I could sit and pontificate about the rights and wrongs of that ethos for hours, but that’s just the way it is (bet you just sang that in your head). And so, in a tactical error of the size not seen since King Herod launched his creche business, I’d become practically unemployable – at least if I wanted to earn anything like the sort of money I’d been on.

So I thought – if I’m not going to earn the same money – I may as well do something I enjoy. And that, dear readers, leads me – via a rather tortuous and confused route – to where I am now. Standing in fields, sunburnt/windswept/soaked/cold (delete where applicable), imploring people to buy chilli products.

And you know what? I’ve never had more fun in a professional capacity. I say to everyone that asks that it just doesn’t feel like a real job. It’s hard work, tiring, unpredictable, irritating, all-consuming, confusing and badly paid…but what other career gives you the ability to tell grown men that they’re a wuss and to ask them to check their Man Licence, to inflict pain on people with Ghost 3.2, to hand out sweeties to small children and not get a visit from Operation Yew Tree, to advertise for single ladies in a brazen display of desperation, and above all to have a bloody good laugh and say that it’s imperative to the job?

So do I regret leaving the corporate world? Well, it was better paid and less time-consuming, but I am immeasurably happier, and measurably healthier, doing what I do now. And what I’ve been doing over the last week is more of the same, but in the best location ever. I was lucky enough to wangle a spot at the Corfe Castle Food Festival in Dorset. I say lucky because it was an event ostensibly for local businesses, but I am always on the lookout for new locations and would love to find some customers in Daaaarzet, as it should be pronounced. Why? Well, it’s where my Mum & Dad come from, and I spent many, many happy days in the county as a child, it feels like a second home. My Uncle still lives there, and was happy enough to put me up for the weekend in his lovely thatched cottage with it’s rescued clay-mining paraphernalia in the garden..

So the relentlessly cheerful Zoe at the National Trust let me in, and I’m glad she did – what a spectacular setting for a festival. Apologies for making this post look a bit like a photo album, but you don’t get market locations like this every weekend!

The Lollipop of Shame

But did Dorset like it’s chillies? Well, yes it did – but this is where it gets a little confusing, as it often does. Because you see, dear reader, I try to predict what the audience will want, and stock up accordingly. So for for somewhere genteel and polite like Corfe I took loads and loads of jams, which I thought would fly off the table (and not just because of the inevitable breeziness that the location brings). But no, Corfe is not a jam town. The chutney stall next to me concurred – they didn’t do a roaring trade. Luckily for me I have the Chipotle Chilli Salt solution to all meal questions, and quite a few of them shifted, so it was a decent weekend overall.

The only fly in the ointment was my second encounter with petty larceny. I left my gazebo up overnight, sidewalls zipped shut, taking all my stock with me ‘just in case’. What I didn’t take with me this time were my samples, which I left on the table in the gazebo. Well, someone obviously came careening out of The Greyhound pub that night and desperately needed some Sweet Chilli Sauce for his post-binge chips, ‘cos there was no sign of it on Sunday morning. I have checked repeatedly in all my crates to make sure it’s not me being a doofus, but no – someone’s swiped it. Not the end of the world of course, but it’s amazing how that affected the psychology of customers…I had no sample on Sunday, so no-one bought any – whereas it had been one of my best sellers on Saturday.

Overall though, a lovely, lovely event – can’t wait to do it again next year.

King Gazebo amongst the ruins

A ruin amongst King Gazebo

On the flip side, I tried out Temple Quay in Bristol on Thursday and I just can’t seem to get it to work. Now I’m not a believer in astrology – I don’t believe it matters if you were born a Libra, Scorpio, Humpback Whale, Great A’Tuin or under the sign of the Prancing Pony – but as Taurean I am of course a stereotypically stubborn cove who will plod along trying to extract a result out of a lost cause. So I’ve been trying Temple Quay fortnightly, and whilst it’s good fun going to say hello to my former colleagues in the office, it’s not lucrative. So I’ve made the decision to keep plodding away bullishly, but only once a month from now on – the first Thursday of the month. So I’ll still be there, just less often…and I’m already looking at alternatives for the third Thursday of the month!

Tidworth was steady on Friday, unspectacular but it’s building slowly. I’m not sure where everyone was on Saturday, but they weren’t in Devizes – the Pink Chilli Hobbit had a quiet morning there, though it was better in Marlborough on Sunday.

No reports back from Sheffield or the North East, will be interesting how many Ghost 3.2-powered cyclists were on the roads of Yorkshire for the Tour de France’s Grande Départ 🙂

On totally non-chilli note, it’s sad to hear that Sir Terry Pratchett isn’t able to attend the Discworld Convention this year. It seems that his Alzheimer’s condition is taking its toll and that he’s not up to the task any more. Hopefully he has a few more books in him yet, but it’s tragic to see such a brilliantly inventive mind struggle with the things that come so easily to most of us. I’ve seen the effect that Alzheimer’s has, not just on the individual but on the family as well, and it’s heartbreaking. You expect your loved ones to age and for body parts to fail, seize up or drop off, but the mind is the most precious organ and to see it get mired in the impenetrable pea-souper of incoherence that is Alzheimer’s is just horrible. When it gets to the point that parents no longer recognise their children, no words can convey the empty feeling that engenders. If you are dealing with the disease in any way shape or form, you have my utmost sympathy.

So shall we be a bit more cheerful for a minute? Why, let’s do that. Some comments from the weekend:

‘That tastes like fire’ (inspired by Ghost 3.2)
‘Ooh that’s hot’ (inspired by Smoked Chipotle Sauce. Much abuse followed)
‘Eeeeeeeuw’ (inspired by Fruity Chilli Sauce, tasted by an 8-year-old. No free lollipop for her)
‘I know where you shop!’ (yours truly, spotting a customer wearing an identical shirt. We’re not disclosing which top designer outlet we bought them from)

Looking ahead, I have an outbreak of chilli festivals coming up (if two can be called an outbreak). I’m off to West Sussex this weekend for the Shoreham-by-Sea Chilli Festival. I’m praying for decent weather as I’m camping it up for the weekend, just round the corner from Brighton & Hove (Actually) Albion’s Amex Stadium, which coincidentally I’m going to visit later this year for a Christmas Market. The Pink Chilli Hobbit is at the Chippenham Food Festival on Sunday, this should be a good event so please pop along. We’re also at Bristol’s Foodies Festival, Cardiff International Food Festival, Leicester Global Market and our usual haunts in Swindon, Bath and Oxford.

Lots going on in the background as well, looking at gift packs and clothing – I’ll keep you posted.

And on that it’s time to get back to the World Cup…don’t worry, it’ll be over soon. At least another test series starts tomorrow, and we have another two-and-a-bit weeks of rouleurs, puncheurs, domestiques and soigneurs to talk about. Say what now?

Your word for today is ‘apoop’ Use it wisely.

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Posted in Chilli, General

Tagged Corfe, Lollipop of shame, Pink Chilli Hobbit, Pratchett, WCF

Contemplating Eindhoven

Posted on July 1, 2014 | Leave a comment

Love is in the air
Every sight and every sound
And I don’t know if I’m being foolish
Don’t know if I’m being wise

But it’s something that I must believe in
And it’s there when I look in your eyes

(c) John Paul Young

OK, so I’m not sure if gazebos (even anthropomorphised ones) have eyes, but there was definitely a certain frisson in the ether when Princess Pinkbox and King Gazebo finally met on Sunday. As befits gazebo royalty though it was an intensely formal affair, and decorum dictated that a respectable distance was kept at all times, although your guess is as good as mine as to what may have happened whilst our backs were turned. If Pink Chilli Hobbit starts to hear the patter of tiny gazebo legs in a few months…well, I guess we should have kept the covers on.

That was at the Swindon Dragon Boat Race, which looked like a real hoot for the competitors. I never knew that Swindon was twinned with Hawaii (although the football teams are on a par), but the sight of sinewy, sun-blasted youths powering their way through the surf to stirring anthemic music theme is something I will never forget. OK, OK…in the interests of reporting accuracy it was more like the local accountancy company (complete with Beryl from HR) trying to beat a team with Rocking Robin (Swindon Town’s mascot, for the uninitiated) as the drummer, racing to the theme tune from Hawaii-Five-O…but you get the drift. It was good fun, I have no idea who won as we were away from the action a bit, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Apart from that it was routine trading in Lechlade and Reading, nothing of real note apart from a most confused response from a customer at the event in Reading. He’d already announced himself as someone that doesn’t like spicy food, but – and kudos to him for giving it a go – he said that if you don’t open yourself up to new experiences you don’t know what you might miss. He tasted the Mango Hot Sauce, which as we know is sweet, fruity and yet packing of a surprising wallop…and then said ‘that tastes really nice, but I hate it’. I’d rather deal with customers like that – willing to try it out even in the knowledge they probably won’t like it – than the sort that sneer at you and pull a face like you’ve just pooed in your hand and thrown it at them.

Now here’s an interesting article. You’ll remember the grief I was having last week in making Naga Chilli Salt – well, seems my discomfort was well placed – check out the article at this link. It doesn’t surprise me, the basic chemical in chillies is basically a poison (as so many things are). Don’t let that put you off though 😉

So in a bit of a departure this post I’m not going to wobble on about the weather, England’s World Cup non-performance, or any of that sort of drivel.

Instead, this week I shall give you a few behind-the-scenes snippets of life in the chilli kitchen, just so that you know what we mean when we go on about cooking, bottling and labelling. Here’s one of our sauces in its pre-cooked state, in our big cooker. Any ideas which one it is? (No sneaky scrolling down to see the answer now…)

That’s right – it’s Mango Hot Sauce. I know, I know…it looks nothing like it, but trust me. The mangoes are at the bottom of the pan, waiting to be blitzed with our monster blender, as you can see below.

This is not the Masterchef school of cookery, it’s pretty industrial in it’s methodology – it has to be that way to produce the numbers of units we do, even with a smaller batch.

Even so it is done with a great deal of care and attention. Ingredients are measured out accurately, temperatures are controlled carefully, and timings are of paramount importance. True, there is an awful lot of verbal abuse flying around – it seems to aid the flow of the day – and keeps spirits up when there’s a heck of a lot to do.

So once everything’s been blitzed it’s left to cook, usually with the blender left in situ to continue to break up the chunks so that the sauce goes through the bottling machine. Watching the sauce get sucked into the murky depths, only to go round the pan and appear again can be quite hypnotic. It’s almost like a screensaver…

So once that’s all cooked it gets transferred to the bottling machine for…well…bottling. Now it’s a bottling machine with a semi-automatic process, in that the sauce gets poured into a big hopper, the operator hits the foot pedal (pretending to be John Bonham or Neil Peart whilst doing so), desperately hoping that he’s remembered to put a bottle under the nozzle. This is almost always the case, but in the mindless repetition that is the bottling process occasional mistakes occur. We’ve all done it…

For a batch of Mango in the big cooker like this one you’re talking in the region of 750 bottles, so you can see how the occasional lapse in concentration occurs. We are but flesh and blood, ladies and gentlemen, and the later in the day it gets, the stupider the flesh and blood becomes.

The Leaning Tower of Mango

But by and large it goes without incident, and you end up with large numbers of crates stacked up like the picture to the right waiting for some helpful sort to load up the sack truck and wheel them over to the old kitchen for capping and labelling.

Capping involves slipping a heat-shrink cap onto each bottle and then holding it in a cunning device that is basically an electric coil with a v-shaped plate in front of it to rest the bottle. The caps shrink in a second, and then on to the next stage – which I hate – sticking the ‘best before’ stickers on. There is no easy way to do this with standard bottles, as we put the stickers on the bottom of the bottle to stop them rubbing off in transit. Tedious isn’t the word.

Labelling is another semi-automatic process. Another machine with a foot pedal, though for reasons I’m never quite worked out we have it at counter level and tap it with a hand.

And that’s what we do…time after time after time. It’s pretty repetitive so we take it in turns to be on the bottling machine, or capping and labelling, or making salts, or whatever else it is we do to bring our products to you. Last week though – thanks to Jamie trying to remove his own fingers in a van door and someone taking the stabilisers off Bonds bike, guess who got be Mr Bottle for 2 days? Though it’s a bit repetitive it’s what gives me a real buzz when I sell something on the stall – I can quite often say ‘I made that!’ – and you don’t get that from a checkout operator in the supermarkets.

So, anything else of interest out there this week? I have to admit to having lived in a bit of a chilli-shaped bubble over the last few days, so it’s entirely feasible that the Martians have landed, taken over the White House, been ousted from office (probably by Bruce Willis wearing a sweat-stained vest) and order restored. I just wouldn’t have noticed.

Greener by the day

Banksy has nothing on us

On the left – this is why I’m late getting to work some days.

This weekend coming will see us in Bristol’s Temple Quay, Tidworth, Devizes, Corfe Castle, Sheffield, the North East Chilli Festival, Corsham, the Cotswold Show, Frome, Shaftesbury, Marlborough, Bath, Swindon, Oxford and – after all of that – the pub for an adult beverage. But not Eindhoven…not yet, at least.

Back to the football, such as it is. Another turgid match where the favourite goes through. Boring!

Sayonara peeps, catch you next time.

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Posted in Chilli, General

Tagged behind the scenes, Pink Chilli Hobbit, WCF, Wiltshire Chilli Farm

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!!!

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Posted in Chilli, Cricket, Football, General

Tagged cricket, Kingham, Scoville units, WCF

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

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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

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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.

Hugs and happiness ’til we meet again post-Kernow.

Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably-Priced Love and a Hard-Boiled Egg!

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Posted in Chilli, Cricket, General

Tagged Bristol, cricket, Frome, WCF

Mr Angry has spoken

Posted on May 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

First up this week, an apology.

I am sorry.

There, I’ve said it. Read into that what you will. The gentleman that has sparked this wanton outpouring of regret, the gentleman that yesterday threatened and intimidated me loudly, aggressively – in fact furiously – will not know precisely what I am sorry for, because the full text of my apology has been written and subsequently deleted, from this blog at least. I am not going to get drawn into the kind of foaming, spittle-flecked exchange that he obviously gets his kicks from, as his kind of verbal terrorism has no place in a civilised society that values free speech and tolerance. I simply will not have any part of it, sir.

So, again – I am sorry. But not what you think I ought to be sorry for.

And with that, we’ll move on to a life more chilled, in fact more chillied.

Having said that I’m going to move on…I am somewhat dismayed by the election results that have come out over the last few days. I don’t hold a great deal of love for any major political party, working on the theory that MP/MEPs are either:

Career politicians with no knowledge of real life
Eton poshos with no knowledge of real life
Junket junkies with no knowledge of real life
Decent honest people that have been caught up in the helter-skelter of Westminster and have therefore lost touch with real life

So really – Nigel Farage is our best hope? Here’s what I found in my dictionary:

So it was mega-busy at the Chilli Farm last week. As Jamie’s at the Royal Bath & West Show this week we were on double shifts to cook enough supplies. Much cooking, bottling, labelling and swearing was undertaken as we did our best to make sure our detailed estimates on stock requirements (not finger in the air guesstimates, honest) have been met. We think we got it right…not sure though…time will tell.

The weekend, with the exception of what shall forever be know as ‘The Oxbow Incident’ referred to above, was a blast. Saturday was a Royal Wootton Bassett day, Sunday was Bath Green Street, and Monday was Salisbury International Market (complete with a race car for some reason). All busy, sporadically dry, occasionally windy, amusing incidents aplenty and many, many tasters of God Slayer suffering the after-effects. It never ceases to amaze me how many people taste it, recoil in napalm and lava-fuelled shock, then say something to the effect of ‘bugger me that’s tasty, I must have one’! It’s a remarkable testament to the endorphin rush created by the chemicals in chillies as well as the fantastic tastes that Dr Jamie creates in his ~~laboratory~~ kitchen.

The Pink Chilli Hobbit has returned from a lovely week on the Isle of Mull and gone straight back into the coal face, or as close a coal face as Bradford on Avon can muster. She received a visit from a couple from New Orleans, on their hollybobs in the glorious rain of the UK, who were mightily impressed with the Chipotle Chilli Sauce and bought some to take home with them – to show Louisiana how it really should be done 🙂

It’s a busy couple of weeks, we all have lots of events – and BIG events. As I mentioned above, Jamie’s at the Royal Bath & West over the next few days; also this week we’re in Frome, Bath, Swindon, Oxford, Marlborough, Bristol, Lechlade, Evesham and Kenwood House in London. We’ll need a bit of a lie down after all of that.

Well, a hobbit can’t live on chocolate chip cookies and Planet Rock alone (try though I might). It’s time I located the kitchen and pretended to cook. The authorities have been warned.

Laters!

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Posted in Chilli, General

Tagged Bath, Pink Chilli Hobbit, Salisbury, WCF

Recalcitrant owls

Posted on May 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

Go away, it’s Monday and I’m not coming out to play

Well, where do we start this week?

Weather-wise it’s been absolutely fabulous over the weekend…unless you’re called the Pink Chilli Hobbit and have headed off to the wettest, windiest place in the UK – the Isle of Mull. It’s her annual holiday destination these days, and I expect to hear tales of whales and discussions on puffins when she gets back next week! It does look great up there though, it just tends to catch what the Atlantic weather systems throw at the UK square in the teeth.

So I’ve been let loose from my normal habitat of the south of England this weekend just gone, venturing up to the vaguely northern climes of Cheshire. I know that’s not really very far north, but when all the place names are redolent of rugby league teams it must be far enough up to warrant the description. Tatton Park just outside Knutsford (City Limits) was the destination, for a country show that turned out to be distinctly less tweedy than Thame a few weeks back. I’m guessing it’s because the area is much more premier league footballer than rich landowner, but the comparisons are fascinating:

Thame – lots of labradors. retrievers and spaniels

Tatton Park – yappy little handbag dogs and posh terriers that have never seen a rabbit outside of the Waitrose meat section

Thame – tweed everywhere, plenty of it functional

Tatton Park – Hollyoaks chic in abundance, fake tans and tattoos on conspicuous display

Thame – accents varying from Mockney to West Country, with an abundance of Home Counties

Tatton Park – Scouse and Manc accents, with the occasional Black Country frontier gibberish thrown in to remind me of my days at North Staffs Polytechnic. Nearly needed a phrase book at one point.

The one thing that was markedly different from Thame was that my renewed lollipop supply remained firmly in place, although it was severely depleted by the end of the weekend. Maybe it’s my sign that helped keep the felons away!

It’s certainly gained a few retweets today via Planet Rock radio. It seems that my attempt to ensnare a straying WAG put a smile on a few Monday faces.

And did it work? That’ll be an emphatic no 😦 Will just have to keep putting the sign out.

What’s with the owl reference, I hear you all cry? Alright, alright, maybe not all of you…but someone must have thought it. Well it’s like this…there was a falconry display held in the main ring a couple of times each day, and what became apparent after watching it from King Gazebo is that:

Gyrfalcons are really fast, incredible agile and stylish
Harris Hawks are really smart
Barn owls are the dumb blondes of the bird world – gorgeous to look at but nothing between their perfectly formed tufty ears
Owls can be stubborn, ornery cusses

The last fact was very apparent with one owl that was – to be fair – just coming back to show work after a long period on the sidelines. After being released from his training line for the first time in 2 years he just sat on his perch and looked as confused as a UKIP politician trying not to sound racist. After much cajoling, offers of tasty morsels and noises designed to encourage owlish types he sill sat there, refusing to budge. In the end the handlers had to go and carry him back to his box. Well, it was hot – why fly when someone can carry you?

As well as the falcons there were some serious outbreaks of cute…I give you…drum roll please…FLUFFY BUNNIES!!!

I love the fluffy bunny huddle in the second picture – it’s like they’ve seen me with the camera and suddenly gone ‘sh*t, he’s seen us – how do we get out of this?’ 😀

Another thing that struck me about the area around Knutsford is the ostentatious wealth. The houses are seriously upmarket, and the de rigueur architectural feature appears to be a bloody big front gate, preferably wedged between pillars of some considerable size. And you know what I didn’t see whilst passing any of these houses? People! All the houses appeared locked and uninhabited, although immaculately maintained. I guess when you have enough money for a house like that, you have enough money for several houses like that.

This was in the car park of the B&B I stayed at – a gorgeous, beautiful old Bentley. I saw it on the road as well, and the noise from the engine was just wonderful. It may not be economical to run, or meet EU emissions rules, but by ‘eck it has soul.

My 5-mile journey from the B&B to the Country Show took me past Range Rover, Bentley and Rolls Royce dealerships, huge cubic behemoths of showrooms with millions of pounds worth of vehicles inside. I could almost feel my trusty 145,000-mile Peugeot van shrug with Gallic haughtiness as I drove past 🙂

Some final shots from the weekend – more hook-beaked raptors, and the guys from the Seven Dials Rapscallions – possibly the best-dressed shoppers I’ve ever had.

Back to the farm this week, lots of production to be done to stock us all up for the next couple of weeks, which will include the Royal Bath & West Show, one of our flagship events. For this weekend though you can find me at Royal Wootton Basset, Bath Green Street and possibly Salisbury (still awaiting confirmation on that one!). The Pink Chilli Hobbit will be in Bradford-on-Avon on Sunday (if she doesn’t trip over a puffin on holiday, that is). We’ll also been in our usual haunts of Bath, Swindon and Oxford, as well as Petersfield, Crabstock in Northampton and Marble Hill in Twickenham, the home of odd-shaped balls. Blimey we don’t half get about.

Have a great week and look forward to another bank holiday weekend!

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Posted in Chilli, General

Tagged Knutsford, Pink Chilli Hobbit, Tatton Park, Thame, WCF

Now we are 50

Posted on May 12, 2014 | Leave a comment

Never too old for balloons

Age is a funny thing , you know. It only seems like yesterday that I was young, vibrant, fit and healthy (well…young, at least). By the time you read this there’s a very good chance I will be eligible for membership of the Saga old biddies club, Tuesday being the dread day when I reach a half century. Now as a cricketer I should be jolly glad to have made it that far without feathering a nick to the slips, but Goddammmit I’m now officially, irrefutably, unequivocally middle aged in number, outlook and creakiness. Becoming a granddad was one thing, but now I can’t even pretend to be anything other than a crotchety old git, even if I have, by action, been one for years. I hope there’s more to being 50 than getting the right to wave The Daily Mail irrationally at Eastern Europeans.

On the subject of creakiness I can confirm that I’m not cut out for a career at the front line of horticulture. I spent last Wednesday at the Farm helping with planting and other such deeply green-fingered activities, and even though it only a half days’ effort on my part I can safely say that I have not ached so much in a very long time. Despite being closer to the ground than most (a fact pointed out by Jamie before he was threatened with a broom-shaped enema) the mere act of repeatedly bending down to insert green things into brown stuff led to me later uttering the full range of old man noises…on getting up out of the chair…sitting down on the chair…getting into the car…out of the car…in fact, pretty much any movement at all. Kudos to the regular heavy lifters at the farm, Simon and Aaron, not sure how they do it. My late Dad, who often despaired of my total ineptitude in a gardening environment, must have been looking down on me from above, chuckling quietly to himself.

Striding purposefully

Friday saw me waging a mostly losing battle with the fiendish device that is our bottling machine. I now know, after much stickiness, that Sweet Chilli Sauce is a right little so-and-so to bottle, it’s very stickiness tending to make it form air pockets in the neck of the bottle with significant resultant spurtage (stop sniggering at the back). Of swearing there was much, and I was thankful that the remaining batches to be bottled (jarred?) were both jams. Just the searing heat of the jars to contend with, then. Who needs fingerprints anyway?

Stick Duck

The weekend was spent either (a) sheltering from the wind (Sherston) or (b) being battered by it (Chippenham). Either way it seemed to frighten customers away, so I’ve had to cancel my order for the pied-a-terre in the south of France, for now at least. Soon…

More news about Frome (who knew there was so much to report!) – I will no longer be a regular at the Cheese & Grain Farmers Market, though I may make some guest appearances.

We will still be going to the Independent Market though, so you can still get your fix 🙂

I’m off on my travels away from the Shire this weekend coming, making the long(ish) trek to Knutsford for the Tatton Park Country Show – let’s see if I can keep hold of my lollipops this time. Should be fun, I hope I get luckier with the conditions that all those traders at the Badminton Horse Trials (who were, as expected, all guilty as charged). If the mud didn’t get you, the Lesser Spotted Dive Bombing Gazebos did. It’s a real shame when all that expense and hard work goes unrewarded 😦

Also this weekend we’ll be in Devizes, Wallingford, Swindon, Oxford, Bath, Newbury and Ulan Bator. Actually one of those might be a lie, just checking you’re still reading.

That just about wraps it up for this week, I’m off to do exciting birthday preparation like putting the out recycling and feeding the cats. Rock, and dare I say it, roll.

Not related to me at all

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Posted in Chilli, General

Tagged Chippenham, Frome, Sherston, WCF

The Abominable Dr. Sythes

Posted on May 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

Greetings chilli chums, and welcome to more rambling thoughts from a fevered imgination.

I’ve been having an internal tussle with precisely what to use as the title for this week’s post. ‘Gazebo Envy’ was a real contender, which came about because somehow, with no knowledge of what I was doing at the time, I appear to have bought a gazebo that other traders lust after. Now I know that a bit of snobbiness came to the fore when I bought it (‘I’m not having the bottom of the range’) but little did I know that market organisers would be pointing it out to traders whose own canopy has just sailed over the rooftops and saying ‘that’s what you should have bought’. Maybe it’s the colour (which was a deliberate action on my part to make it stand out from the crowd), maybe it’s the perceived robustness (it’s pretty damned solid), or maybe it’s the fact that even a dullard such as myself can put up the thing single-handed. Whatever the reason, it appears to be gazebo royalty. All hail King Gazebo!

‘Alarm Bells’ was another title contender. Those of you familiar with Tim Vine’s work will know that not only does he trot out pun after pun with barely enough time for you to keep up, but he also sings a wonderful little ditty by the name of Alarm Bells (watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcFd5j1cios if you’re unfamiliar). So, to paraphrase the punslinger:

When you host a chilli fest then that’s just great

When you want a chilli vodka well that’s OK

When Jamie gets involved…alarm bells, alarm bells, alarm bells…

Now there is a reason for this of course. Last week friend of the farm Dawn, who is organising the Oxordshire Chilli Festival, came to make some sauces in Jamie’s kitchen. Now this was achieved with the minimum of fuss, only sporadic swearing and the usual amount of ritual abuse of anyone within hailing frequencies. It was only when Dawn mentioned that she wanted a chilli vodka for use at the Festival launch party that The Abominable Dr Sythes’ eyes lit up…and to cut a long story short, before we knew it there was a bottle of vodka absolutely rammed with scorpions, habaneros, chipotles and ghosts.

Normal people would, of course, have added just a chilli or two – maybe as many as ‘a few’ to the vodka. Not our Jamie, heavens no, nothing so half-hearted. Now far be it from me to suggest that Jamie is on a mission to inflict real pain on the inhabitants of our sceptered isle, but I tasted the results – just the tiniest amount, barely enough to call it a tasting really – and damn near passed out on the spot. I’m glad I didn’t try a proper shot of it or I strongly suspect my insides would have become my outsides, and at some considerable speed. Quite, quite extraordinary, and not a little combustible. Probably the hottest thing I have ever tasted.

Luckily, surviving the experience left me to contemplate a very busy weekend under the ruddy auspices of King Gazebo. Thursday saw me in Bristol’s Temple Quay as the rain kept the punters away, but I still preferred to be on the outside of my old office looking in at my desk (I wonder if it misses me?). Friday was bitterly cold and I spent the morning moaning about the weather in Tidworth, but the market’s building slowly and I think it’s going to be a good one. Our guys in the forces like their hot stuff, and I’m more than happy to help them test each others chilli mettle 🙂

Saturday was my home fixture in Devizes, it was a really lovely spring day and our newest product, a scorpion chilli chorizo made for us by Pete at The Cotswold Curer, was extremely well received.

Damned tasty it is, it won’t be around for long and I hope we get to order some more!

The biggest problem is not eating all the samples. I’ve had to display unaccustomed levels of restraint all weekend, and as someone who is generally no stranger to the pie shop I have surprised even myself.

Sunday saw a first for me at Frome’s Independent Market. Now I’m not sure what I expected having never been before, but it a lot bigger than I’d anticipated and consequently was very, very busy. Having mastered the slope I did a brisk trade all day, and am looking forward to returning next month.

My final outing of the weekend was to a very pleasant event at Wanborough, in the form of a May Day Fayre. Another lovely day brought the crowds out, I was mobbed all day by the locals who obviously love their chilli stuff, and before I knew it I was packing up and heading off home for a lie down and an adult beverage. A really nice village event, well run by the locals (although Luisa’s Cupcakes did have a pitch-related crisis early doors, for which I was glad to help ameliorate – I look forward to my payment in cupcake form) and it’ll be great to go back.

A day of planting at the farm awaits tomorrow (I can already hear my aging bones complaining), and what purports to be a quiet(ish) weekend beckons. I can be found in Sherston on Saturday and Chippenham on Sunday – hope to see you there. We’re also in Oxford, Kenilworth, Bath, Devon and Swindon over the next few days, so hunt us down.

Finally, good luck to Claire from Hive Originals, who will be trading at the Badminton Horse Trials this weekend with the Pink Chilli Hobbit as her able assistant. I know this is a massive event for Claire so I hope it goes really well. Fingers crossed!

Well I think my Sunday roast is nearly ready (I know, but I work a wonky work week remember) so I’ll sign off. Have a great week and speak to you soon.

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Posted in Chilli, General

Tagged Bristol, Devizes, Frome, scorpion, Tidworth, WCF

Tag Archives: WCF

It’s been a year

Contemplating Eindhoven

The wrong type of sun

Gorgeous stalkers

King Gazebo is broken

Whippersnappers

Mr Angry has spoken

buf·foon

Recalcitrant owls

Now we are 50

The Abominable Dr. Sythes

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