Hands up who remembers what we agreed after last year’s fundraising effort in aid of Crisis? Yes, that’s right, we said – and I quote – “We are never, ever doing a Yard Sale again!”
Saturday September 9th
I am doing my usual voluntary stint at Porthcawl parkrun until 10.30am but then going somewhere to do something approximating a job. This takes much longer than I anticipate so I message Annie to say that I won’t be home until after 5pm. “No worries!” comes back a text followed by several emojis laughing hysterically and one whose skull is blowing off the top of its head. On the spur of the moment, Annie decluttered the entire house and had a pop up Yard Sale, announced to passing motorists by chalky scrawl on a giant blackboard tied to the garden fence. When I get home that evening, Annie confesses she told everyone who came – and, not surprisingly given we live on a main road with a lot of traffic including 6 buses an hour (3 in each direction), there were a lot of visitors – that there would be another Yard Sale for Crisis before Christmas and next time, she’d make sure there’d be cakes for sale.
Sunday September 10th
We sit down and have a serious chat and decide that maybe a smallish fundraiser rather a repeat of last year’s chaos is in order. I agree to see if anyone would like to pay to adopt one or two of the preloved teddy bears I mend; Annie thinks it would be a good idea to do a table top sale with some more of her junk – sorry – ephemera .
Friday September 29th – Sunday September 23rd
I am working away from home. On Friday Annie goes to a nearby town on the bus to assess a Friday morning Table Top Sale. She decides this will not be a suitable venue for her junk – sorry – ephemera. On Saturday she hears someone on television say the words “Go Big or Go Home”. This phrase takes root and grows inside her brain until she completely forgets our conversation of Sunday 10th September. She makes the most of me being in another part of Wales to send messages to everyone she knows asking them for anything and everything they do not want so she can sell it at a Yard Sale in aid of Crisis.
Saturday 7th October
Annie sets the time & date of the Yard Sale as 12pm – 4pm, Sunday 10th December. I suggest that at roughly the same time we offer 20 friends the opportunity to sit in front of our 3 lit log burners and have tea, coffee and home-made cake for £5 a pop. Annie thinks this is the most ridiculous idea I have ever had.
Saturday 14th October
The spare bedroom is now full of everyone else’s junk – sorry – ephemera.
Thursday 18th October
While I am working in the garden, Annie decides to polish the log burner in the living room using HotSpot Stove Paint. Annie comes down the path and says tearfully that she didn’t want us to be ashamed of the state of the log burner if we had visitors but if she had realised that the base of the tube would burst open shooting a thick black oily gunge across the room so that it landed in permanent, never to be removed, splatters all across our new-ish pale grey carpet then, yes, she would have put newspapers down first. I am not that bothered by this report for three reasons: firstly, the new-ish pale grey carpet was not my choice; secondly, somewhere in the spare bedroom under the junk – sorry, ephemera – is a large rug I bought some years ago; thirdly, you don’t get to mine and Annie’s age – especially after a working life in the NHS – without knowing that there are worse things in life than a paint stained carpet. However, Annie doesn’t usually weep over soft furnishings so I sum up my feelings by shrugging and saying “It’s only stuff.” Annie thinks I am amazing and buys me a bag of chocolate buttons.
Friday 19th October
Now that the HotSpot Stove Paint has dried completely, the incriminating evidence is covered by the rug that we liberated from the spare bedroom.
Wednesday 25th October
Last Saturday at the Makers’ Market in Rhondda Heritage Park, Ruby the teddy bear was adopted by someone who gave me a donation for Crisis. I know from experience that the people who I interact with on Twittex are – in spite of their intellect, job titles and academic persuasions – slightly but joyously bonkers so at 7.52pm I tweet that Scarecrow Cottage Hospital is having a mass discharge of patients and post this picture.
By 8.27pm, the status is this and we have made about £75 for Crisis.
Saturday 28th October
The second reception room is now full of everyone else’s junk – sorry, ephemera.
Tuesday 7th November
I send messages inviting 20 friends to a Log Burner Experience Afternoon with tea, coffee and home-made cakes for £5 a pop. Places sell out within 2 hours.
Monday 20th November
We set our original fundraising target at £150 and as I write this our Just Giving Page stands at £325. Latest research shows that a large proportion of the population are just one payslip away from becoming homeless so this is a cause that resonates with most folk. Annie and I have a joint income that doesn’t even meet the bottom rung of what constitutes poverty to this government so we can’t make cash donations to charities like Crisis. We do, however, have a garden with a yard, a house that can seat 20 people and friends who, year after year, ridiculous idea after ridiculous idea, turn out to support us and whichever good cause we land on. If you can be anything in life, be a friend like that. And don’t worry about stains on the carpet – they’re a lifestyle choice.