What with the dry, sunny weather making for a full and early harvest, us hosting an open garden for the RNLI and me spending a lot of time wandering about Pembrokeshire doing research, it’s been a busy summer at Scarecrow Cottage. The autumn usually brings a chance for us to slow down but this year is a bit different. Back in March we began to raise money to help people who are homeless and living on the streets. At the beginning of September, thanks to cash made in exchange for fresh, home-grown figs, apples and runner beans there was £30 in the savings tin. Annie-Dora was put in charge of further fundraising and selecting an appropriate charity. The campaign called Crisis at Christmas struck a note but finding a way to generate income when much of the country is in economic turmoil and the cost of putting food on the table or switching the heating on is going to be higher up the priority list than sponsoring a walk required Annie-Dora to have a lightbulb idea. Which is when she came up with the idea of an Autumn Yard Sale. Usefully, I have grown a surfeit of large, knobbly pumpkins which can be sold as such an event.
Annie-Dora felt we needed more so she watsapp’d all of her buddies and asked for donations of “stuff”. Within days her study looked like a bomb had dropped.
Anything which she thought she could sell for more than £5 was posted to an on-line market and as a result the savings tin now has £80 in it. In her own inimitable, ex-nurse way of looking at life, Annie-Dora equates this to being 2 people, an arm and a leg having a room and board over Christmas so we are on a push to bring the rest of the 3rd body indoors. Not everything has been marked for sale though. The animated goat that produces a squeaky Julie Andrews’ version of The Lonely Goatherd is apparently something she can’t live without so paid £5 for it herself.
On the other hand the wall lizards were snapped up almost as soon as they were posted, with a queue of eager buyers waiting in hope to be chosen as their new owner.
From someone who a year ago was a technophobe, Annie-Dora has embraced the digital marketplace and spends her time with a tablet in one hand and phone in the other, screaming excitably when she hears the unique ping that indicates commercial opportunity. And my role in all of this? You might have thought that as a mentor who supports people starting their own business I would be called on to offer sage advice; as an artist and writer maybe I should have been put in charge of publicity; and as an ex Home Economics teacher, perhaps my talents could be used on the cake or craft stall. No. Apparently the skill I have which outweighs all of the above is that I use Twitter. So it turns out do Michael Sheen and Sir Tom Jones – heroes to Annie-Dora – and she is determined to have one or both of them to either turn up on the day of the Yard Sale or at least to wish her well on social media. My reply that these outcomes are unlikely is batted away as defeatist and pessimistic. I have explained that my connections with these two Welsh icons are limited. Yes, I was born and brought up in Port Talbot, just like Michael and once posted a photograph of Aberavon Beach on Twitter which he liked but these are not grounds for asking a world famous actor to arrive on a Sunday morning in the hope of buying a light up reindeer. As for Sir Tom, the link is even more tenuous: back in the 1990s when my late Mum was very ill, she insisted that I drive her around the Vale of Glamorgan looking for a house she’d heard he was staying at. I did a 3 point turn in his – if it was his – drive but we came away without seeing him. So the only idea I’ve come up with to meet Annie-Dora’s demand is to write a blog about our Yard Sale, put the link on Twitter and tag it to Michael and Tom.
If anyone has anything better to suggest, I’m listening. And if you know either Michael or Tom, do me a favour and ask them to like the post.