It's Not Like It Used To Be

"Sodding hell, I've got another one!"

"Another complaint letter?"

"Yes."

"Is it because there weren't any craft stalls?"

"Yes."

[Sound of head hitting desk]

It's been hard work changing a long standing event. For many years now we have held an annual Christmas Fayre, with numerous stalls situated in and around the house. Each year, however, visitor numbers grow smaller as competition grows greater. The problem is we are a small property with a smaller budget. We simply cannot compete with the garden centre up the road or the big shopping centre in town when they advertise that Father Christmas will be arriving by reindeer-drawn sleigh, as opposed to Mini Metro, and will then be available in a proper grotto that isn't just a hastily erected shed. To make matters worse, neighbouring properties have also jumped on the Christmas Craft Fair bandwagon, often holding the same event as we are, on the same day, thereby effectively, and pointlessly, thinning out the audience.

In previous years we have had all the fun of moving the heavy oak furniture upstairs in the house to accommodate the craft stalls, helping the traders unload their cars and set up their stands, and then listening to them complain bitterly all day that there aren't enough power points, that the lighting is insufficient and that there aren't enough customers and we should have advertised it better.

So, for 2008 we decided to change our Christmas event. Let's play to our strengths, I said. Let's feature what we do have and stop trying to compete with properties with more money or big commercial operations. What we have is a unique, moated medieval manor house. We shall hold an authentic medieval Yuletide event!

The re-enactment group were most enthusiastic when I explained the concept to them. I wanted the public to feel like they'd stepped back in time by 500 years. Characters in costume would be making medieval Christmas food, staging mumming plays, bringing to life and illustrating the origins of many of our modern traditions, everything from original meat-filled mince pies, to Yule logs and Saint Nicholas.

I tried to sum up the essence of the event in our promotional material. The press releases, the adverts in the local papers, the posters, even the banners on the road all emphasised the living history aspect of it all. "Enjoy a Merrie Medieval Christmas" went the blurb. "Experience the music, food and customs of Yuletide as it would have been 500 years ago. See the Great Hall decorated with foliage from the estate and join the household as it prepares for the Christmas festivities." I stressed to anyone that would listen that this was a turkey and tinsel free zone. One thing I was very clear about, one thing it did not say in any promotional material at any point was that this was a craft fair.

The event itself went very well. Visitor numbers were high and our re-enactors were fantastic. The public seemed particularly fascinated by the food piled high on the tables and kept our household ladies very busy with questions about it all. One unexpected point of interest was the skinning of a hare! The group had brought some game with them - a hare, some pheasants, a mallard - so that the men would be able to return successfully from their staged hunt. On the second day of the event one of the medieval ladies asked me if there was anywhere secluded in the courtyard she could go to skin (or pluck, in the case of the birds) and gut the game before it spoiled. I set her up in a discreet corner, where no one had to be privy to the blood and guts of real meat if they didn't want to, but still on show if anyone took an interest. She ended up with a huge crowd around her! Children in particular were quick to express an "Ewwww" and immediately draw closer with a volley of follow up questions.

At the close of the weekend I felt confident that we had provided a top quality educational and entertaining event, with far more people in attendance than at the Christmas Fayre the previous year.

Then I received a letter. It stated how disappointed the author was with our Craft Fair this year. There weren't any stalls at all. I replied to say how sorry I was that he was disappointed with our Merrie Medieval Christmas event but that this was not a craft fair and had never been advertised as such.

Then I received a couple of emails which said pretty much the same thing. The complainants came to our Craft Fair every year but this year it was rubbish! The re-enactors themselves were good, they said, but the courtyard had no trade stands whatsoever. What kind of Craft Fair was this?

Almost every week since Christmas I have received another letter complaining about the paucity of stalls at my Craft Fair. I really don't know what more I could have done to raise awareness of the fact that this event was not a Craft Fair other than emblazoning "NOT a Craft Fair" over all my publicity material. There is annoyance that the event has changed, even though the new event is much better than the old one. There is annoyance that they were unable to not buy anything from a selection of tat-laden trestle tables despite the fact that we were surrounded by venues offering exactly that on the very day they attended.

I truly believe that if I invented a time machine and actually transported people back in time to experience the house in its medieval prime, some people would still be disappointed that the paths were muddy and that there was no opportunity to buy a hand-painted tea tray. It confounds me. Why come for a day out at a medieval house, for a medieval event, if all you really want or enjoy is shopping?

Heaven help me if I ever decide to change the format of our Easter Egg Hunt!

The Return of the Doris (Again)

I am returned, with so much to update upon it is a little overwhelming. In the meantime, while I get my hilarious stories in order, I shall give you a brief, visual summary of the intervening months.

November
It is a sad day for me, after Halloween, when our amazing creature creations have to be taken down and put back into storage. I was immensely proud that several visiting families told us that ours was the best Halloween trail in the region. I can believe it. No crappy paper ghost flapping forlornly in the corner for us! We do Halloween properly. Full-sized monsters and spooky sound effects abound. Still, all good things must come to an end and, reluctantly, I put away the rubber spiders and turned my mind to other issues, such as the water leaking into the house every time it rains.

It isn't a new problem. I have been flagging it up for quite a while now. Still, at long last, shortly before Christmas, some buildings department people and an architect came to see the problem for themselves. Of course, as is the nature of such things, it wasn't raining. It was a glorious winter day with not a cloud in the sky. We would have to recreate rainy day conditions if they were to try to pinpoint where the problem lay. No problem.

"Up you go," we said to Lovely Warden, issuing him with a ladder and a hosepipe. "Try not to fall off, but if you do, try to roll with it."Afterwards, while I was mopping up the subsequent indoor water features that resulted from this experiment, the architect came to show me the water ingress points he had marked on his drawing.

"So, that's pretty much all of it."

"Yes."

"The entire front of the house."

"Yes."

"Almost every timber and every panel needs attention."

"Yes."

"And when can we start work on this?"

"March."

"When we re-open?"

"Yes."

I have been on a course. I know that this is not a disaster. It is a challenge to be met.

December

Time to prepare for the annual Christmas event, which entails much joyous gathering of foliage.

Lovely Warden McColleague and I duly donned our foliage gathering hats and wellies, climbed into the Gator and set off up the road, singing festively.

"Why's it making that noise?" asked McColleague as the Gator thwup-thwup-thwupped its way along.

It turned out that a knackered tyre was making that noise and Lovely Warden had to remove the entire wheel and take it into town to be repaired.

Undaunted we set off on foot to gather whatever we could carry back to the house. We wanted an enormous ball of mistletoe to hang as our centrepiece in the Great Hall. In one of the many old orchards on the estate we found just the specimen.

"Up you go," we said to Lovely Warden, issuing him with a saw and a pair of loppers. "Try not to fall off, but if you do, try to roll with it."


It was an impressive size once Lovely Warden cut it free. Almost as big as McColleague. We used double the rope we would normally to hoist it aloft in the Hall and even then I had a nagging concern it might plummet onto an unsuspecting visitor and flatten them, festively.


It was an exciting walk back across country with the fruits of our labours. Lovely Warden has a habit of taking shortcurts which involve fording streams and scrambling up near vertical slopes of mud. It all got a bit Blair Witch Project for a while. Which I liked, being a Halloween queen.

The Hall was duly decorated and set for a medieval feast. Sadly the public can't sample the food, but the re-enactors are happy to feed it to me. They have lots of interesting spiced alcoholic beverages to pass around in wassail bowls too, which makes for an entertaining evening.


January

Ah, back to work after the Christmas break. The moat froze solid and the flagstones in the Hall developed an alarming mould. I phoned the curatorial department for advice on the best way to tackle it and was informed to brush the mould carefully before vacuuming it up via a special filter and to wear face masks of the correct specification, to avoid breathing in spores.

Ten minutes later Lovely Warden appeared with a broom, McColleague fetched the Dyson and we all pulled our jumpers up over our noses for safety. It was fine.

February

So far this week I have missed the Spring Conference, a training day and a staff meeting due to the heavy snow. While I am obviously deeply disappointed I am making the best of it. Luckily McColleague and I only just re-ordered toilet rolls and biscuits last week so I think I may survive until the thaw.

Tis The Season to be Poorly

For some strange reason I just couldn't get warm all afternoon. We'd sat around the kitchen table, on the last Friday before Christmas, eating a selection of party snacks and drinking the damson gin that Lovely Warden had been brewing in his shed for the past few months. Well, I say eating and drinking. Lovely Warden and McColleague were. I, on the other hand, was not. My appetite was oddly absent and I was mostly sipping water, the alcohol not appealing to me as it usually does.

When my guests finally left I collapsed into an armchair, shivering.

Turned out I was coming down with a bout of festive flu and by the time I returned to normality Christmas was all over. I am not sure if this is a good thing or not, to be honest. I feel like I missed out on a proper big Christmas dinner and the whole drinking, merriment thing, but, then again, I didn't have to cook or make small talk, as I was in a feverish sleep and therefore excused. Swings and roundabouts really.

Busy, busy, busy

Well, this is it, my last weekend off until November. And I use the term "off" in the loosest possible sense. I spent today trying to rearrange the chaos that is my office into a comfortable and non-hazardous area for me to work and volunteers to take tea. The mops and buckets do spoil the ambience though. The long-awaited and oft-promised volunteer room has not been completed in time to get them out of my office for the start of the season. In fact, it is fair to say that work has not, as yet, even commenced on the volunteer room. Unless you count the arrival of a skip a couple of months ago.

It is all rather manic at the moment, trying to put everything in place for re-opening next weekend. There are still fallen branches all over the car park which need removing. The heavy oak furniture needs putting back in place in the house. I have interviewed and selected staff for the role of Kiosk Attendant but the kiosk itself is not yet built. We had to stand on the grass with our interviewees, sketching the kiosk in the air and asking them how they feel about outdoor work.

The Family Room was still set up as Santa's Grotto until two days ago. I have been studiously ignoring it since December, as it Is Not My Room. It is the province of the Learning Officer. During the open season it is set up with various activities for children to enjoy. At Christmas is was transformed into a Grotto, where children could visit Father Christmas. McColleague and I were not involved with the setting up of this room as a Winter Wonderland. Our warden cohorts were banned from putting so much as a bauble on the tree. Only certain members of the team were to be trusted with such a key role. McColleague and I watched with great interest, as we lugged trestle tables from the broken marquees and carried folding chairs into the house, as boxes of lights and cuddly toys were taken into the room. "Flipping heck, " we said, full of festive spirit, "how can it take three people three days to hang a couple of stockings on the wall and spray some fake snow about?"

As is often the case, those who love the pretty, nice, fun side of events - like putting up Christmas decorations - are not as keen when it comes to the clean up. They disappear. After the Christmas events McColleague and I had taken all the foliage out of the house, carried out the trestle tables and chairs, and noted that the Grotto was still as it was, waiting, in stasis, for the clean-up fairies to work their magic. And so it remained throughout January and most of February. Every time I saw the icicle lights above the door I would itch to take them down myself, but this year I have decided to be a bloody-minded Doris. When it got to two weeks to open day I sent an email, appealing to my colleagues to dismantle the Grotto.

Glory be, the Learning Officer and her volunteer arrived to spend a day doing just that. Hooray! They're a good bunch, really. McColleague and I got on with our numerous jobs in the house and at the end of the afternoon we wandered over to see how much had been done. As far as I can make out, two people working for an entire day, in a small room, has led to a small, denuded Christmas tree being left outside the door. "Flipping heck," we said, the spirit of the season descending upon us again.

I am not chucking that tree in the skip for them. I am NOT.

Post Christmas Boredom

There are 12 things by Christmas that this place gave to me:

12 cows escaping

11 mince pie mountains

10 ducks debauching

9 bad pics published

8 days of drinking

7 ramblers daily

6 vats of cheap red

5 full bins

4 falling trees

3 dead sheep

2 destroyed marquees

And a cat who got stuck up a tree

So Here It Is...

Pretty much, anyway.

Yesterday was the last official day at work for a goodly while (though, of course, as I am in residence in the house, I am still on duty throughout the festive season) and to celebrate we held a little lunch time gathering.

I left a poster pinned to the filing cabinet in the main office, inviting everyone along for an end of term mince-pie-and-wine-fest, knowing that it was unlikely the majority would bother. Some people prefer to spend their last few days before Christmas doing some shopping, or travelling, or even sorting out a few last minute bits of work before they leave for the week. To me, resisting the offer of free food and drink is unfathomable. Still, I always invite everyone, as I am a sociable sort.

As usual, only McColleague and Lovely Warden turned up, which was fine, as that was who I had expected and catered for. Darling Daughter and Young Warden were also in attendance, but as they live here they had limited choice. Not that they would turn down the offer of food and drink, being so young and voracious.

I piled the table high with mince pies, and, as predicted, there they remained, untouched. The mince pies are now for decorative purposes only it seems. The wine went very well though. So well we decided it would be a Good Idea to melt a whole camembert to make fondue. Which, actually, was a pretty good idea, even in the cold light of sobriety a day later. It shouldn't have worked, yet it did. I love it when that happens.

So, here I am, pretty much ready for the whole onslaught of festivity. The turkey was delivered this morning by my Boss. He raises free range turkeys all year and then spends a frenzied couple of weeks in December getting them ready for the oven and delivered to all those who ordered one. I mentioned my Boss and his turkeys to my Best Friend earlier this week.

"Oh, right, " she said. She is very kind to all living creatures and does not eat turkeys herself. "And is he nice to his turkeys?"

"Um...well, yes, up to about a week or so before Christmas. Then he isn't as nice to them, I suppose".

Anyway, my turkey - who had a very nice time until quite recently, when he stopped having any kind of time at all - is now taking up a lot of space in the pantry (too big for the fridge). As that's the only drawback to ordering a turkey from the Boss. No matter what you ask for, what you will receive is something the size of a small dog and so heavy you have to transport it on a sack trolley. Luckily I am fond of turkey sandwiches. For a while. After a day or two I can see myself having to offload them onto anyone who strays my way. My "Excuse me..." conversations will have a twist, where I end by saying "and please accept this complimentary turkey bap and mince pie as you climb back over the gate".

Who'll Eat all the Pies?

I am all festived out. Three consecutive weekends of Christmas themed events has left me with a mince pie disorder and the ability to sweat essence of cloves.

Last night’s event was excellent. An evening extravaganza of candlelight and costume, music and mayhem. Well, some of my elderly visitors became a little giddy on the mulled wine and had a second sausage roll, and that qualifies for mayhem round here.

I had a couple of musicians in full Tudor dress to play authentic period music on authentic period instruments. I had not heard them in action prior to their performance here, but half of the duo was an ex-colleague of mine who had offered to play for free. This was all the recommendation I needed at the time, though subsequently I did wonder if I should have asked a few more questions. I formulated a plan B in case they turned out to be awful.

“McColleague,” I said, “if it’s rubbish, get out there with the wine and keep everyone’s glass topped up”.

As it turns out, my fears were groundless, and the Tudor musicians were fantastically good. McColleague was happily able to remain at her station by the mulled wine and top her own glass up in comfort.

Once the audience had dispersed and the doors closed behind them, the after-gig party ensued. There was witty and in-depth discourse around the kitchen table long into the small hours. Most of the party-goers had gone by then, admittedly. Zed regarded me mournfully, his super advanced sense of smell detecting the scent of cloves and alcohol and knowing that did not bode well for a timely breakfast.

My conclusion today is that the human body can only cope with a limited amount of cloves, heated up with orange juice and the kind of red wine that comes in a 1.5 litre bottle with a screw top lid. Mulled wine is just one of those substances that was never meant to be imbibed in great quantities, much like marmite or advocaat. Insane amounts of the stuff, gleefully blended in, and dispensed from, the tea urn, is just not a sensible idea. To then polish off a bottle of port before bedtime, just to be sociable, is also verging on the silly side.

That said, when I ambled back through to the Parlour this morning I was delighted to find we still have several gallons of pre-mulled, cheap Spanish red wine left over and a few bags of crisps! That's my Saturday night in sorted then. I was not quite as delighted to discover we also have about 600 mince pies left, with a rapidly approaching use by date. Over the last few weeks I must have consumed my own weight in mince pies. My recuperative powers only extend to the wine, I’m afraid. I have enough faith and optimism to re-try the wine and womanfully finish it off, but I can't stomach another mince pie. I gathered up our artfully arranged mince pie pyramids and pondered their disposal. I lobbed a few out of the window for the ducks, looked in vain for passing ramblers so I could lob a couple at them, lobbed some to the sheep, but what the hell am I going to do with the rest?

Another door on the Advent Calendar

A successful event, yesterday, despite:

• The total destruction of all our marquees
• The tree being denuded of all its decorations save a red bauble on one branch and a small fake robin, hanging upside down from another
• The cows escaping into the woods, and from there making their way onto the road
• At least three cars getting stuck in the mud and having to be towed out
• The constant rain
• The saddest man in the world on festive duties

So, that’s two down.

Only one more Christmas event to go.

O Tannenbaum

When I left this morning, there was a beautiful Christmas tree, a good 18 foot tall fir tree, being erected in the courtyard. Lovely.

When I returned this afternoon it looked like the local pound shop had exploded and the tree had caught all the crappiest tinsel and baubles in its branches.

McColleague and I will have to put it right tomorrow. Or hope for strong winds overnight.

Picture Perfect

A photographer called today. We needed a picture to illustrate our Christmas events. Given the standard of photography the local press usually produce, my expectations were not high.

Imagine my delight when the photographer wanted not just me, but McColleague as well, to hold aloft a sprig of holly and a fir branch in each hand and grin like the bar had just opened. “Come on girls, hold them up!” chirped the photographer. I didn’t risk even a sidelong glance at McColleague.

“Well, another corker for our collection,” I mused afterwards.

“We looked demented, didn’t we?” ventured McColleague.

“Yes. We looked like we were part of a special group of people who really, really like holding up bits of trees”.

“If that doesn’t draw the crowds, nothing will”.

“Perhaps we should consider nothing as an option next time”.