The trolley saga updated

Last week I was describing the nightmare of getting through trolleys every few weeks as I move my stuff from Essex to Greenwich market, all via public transport. I ordered parts to make a new, longer lasting trolley, but the results were both mixed, and now unnecessary!

The first problem I had was finding a board wide enough to fit the bearings I bought, so had to make a platform out of two bits bolted and glued together; a very inelegant solution. By Friday though the metal for axle had still failed to arrive, so I had to improvise, using a length of clear 20mm acrylic tubing I'd bought to make marble display stands, with a rod of steel tube though the middle. I knew it wouldn't last, and hoped it would survive long enough to see me through the weekend.

Pictured here is the basic set up, as I headed into London on the 6.46 train. By now I had found that it was just all too heavy, and the handle on the original bag (which locks in place) was now too long. Getting to the station had turned into hard work again, as I either had to balance it as I pushed it forward to keep the centre of gravity just so, or drag it like a dead weight. Pushing it forward was more comfortable, but now it made the rucksack feel more uncomfortable and heavier! By the time I got to the end of Saturday the acrylic was cracking and the axle was sliding back and forth, and I was running out of ideas how to transport my equipment.

Then on Sunday I finally got the news I was waiting for! I have storage! There are engineering works yet again this weekend, so to avoid the replacement coach bit I will be doing an extra day on Friday at Greenwich. I'll be quite loaded on the way there, using yet another trolley I have which I doubt would survive a normal weekend, but which will get me and my two storage crates to Greenwich where they can now live!

This doesn't seem like grand news, but in fact it'll do three things for me. Firstly it'll give me back Mondays, as I am usually wiped out from all the heavy moving. It will also allow me to take more and a wider range of stock, and lastly it means I can now concentrate again on a new display. I've wanted to revamp and change some of the equipment, some of which is getting pretty tired and battered now from the constant travelling, so if you see me sketching behind the stall on Friday that's what I'll be working out!

Quick update and Spoonerisms

Thank you to everyone that replied to my blog, it has been very helpful, and if anyone else would like to add I am still very interested to hear what you have to say!

Been a little more than hectic this week, not helped by spending most of it on trains going nowhere. I posted some weeks ago my idea to give those of us who still have to commute (working on stopping doing that) a little something back. I sent it to the train company, who then two days later promptly decided they weren’t squeezing enough money out of their franchise so reverted it back to ‘public ownership’ which seems to mean no ones in charge. Having said that I quite like the new bizarre mix of 1970’s and 2006 carriages linked together, the old ones are way more comfortable too! However it's lucky dip as to if they are running on time or hugely late though.

Back on the creative front the other week I popped into the Folksy Xmas do-thingie to hear what Folksy had planned for the site and to meet a few fellow sellers. One of the lovely people I met there before I had to rush off was Claire McNeil who runs an Etsy and Folksy shop called Spoonerisms http://www.etsy.com/shop/spoonerisms

Claire hunt out old unloved spoons and turns them into Jewellery, on the night she was wearing a lovely pendant made from the end of spoon which had stunning art-deco style pattern. I think it says a lot for craftsmen of old that these old spoons had such wonderful detail on them that can still be reworked and re-envisioned into something beautiful and desirable again.

One of the lovely things Claire has also done is create a series each with their own stories of past loves, broken friendships, and times past called ‘Broken Promises,’ each spoon having a personal memento embedded in resin in a spoon. The stories are very personal indeed, my favourite is an earring given to her by a chap she met in a bar, clicked with, exchanged numbers, but never saw again. It has the romantic title of ‘the one that got away.’ There are so many lovely ones it was tough to pick a picture, and some with such heartrending stories, even an old engagement ring that never turned in to marriage. Gulp! I do promise that not all the stories are quite so sad though!