But first, I went and watched the Massed Pipe Bands playing to a large audience at the town centre, a small park called Wellmeadow. Seeing all those handsome virile men, women and youngsters in kilts, impeccably turned out, marching, playing their bagpipes and banging their drums at the Sergeant-Major's behest brought tears to my eyes:
But time, as well as the pipers, was marching on so I hurried across town - which took approximately three and a half minutes - to the hotel where the craft market was taking place. A slightly strange room, as the hotel has tried to make it seem like the interior of a marquee - presumably so that wedding parties could imagine that they were holding their reception outdoors- with the result that all the white swathing around the walls and ceiling made it feel more like an Arabian souk. The room was also very dimly lit so seeing the detail of the products on sale was rather tricky, but perhaps this was deliberate.
Jean, Jill and Karen were selling handmade Christmas, birthday, wedding, good luck and sympathy cards. They had made hundreds it seemed, including several tractor cards for Ronnie's friends to buy for his birthday. The sheets of card, ribbon, glitter and glue that had been amassed earlier in the week had now been turned into a going commercial concern. Or would have been, except these three ladies only made a grand profit of seven pounds ($14) because they spent all the remaining proceeds buying Christmas gifts from the other stall holders. I asked Karen what they would do with the seven pounds. You guessed it, back to the craft shop at Letham to buy more card supplies. She admitted it wasn't really a very profitable business.
Petrina who runs all the village activities had a table piled high with willow branches, glue and glitter and the young ones were making very eco-friendly stars which were not only a triumph of design but being made of natural product were aesthically pleasing too - even if some of the stars were a bit wonky.
Elaine, my neighbour and poet, was going gangbusters with sales of her books and framed poems. She has recently published a very wee collection of poems written in local Scottish vernacular (as opposed to Gaelic) - they just need to be read phonetically to get the full guttural Scots effect. I think she may have invented a whole new artform.
At four o'clock the craft fair ended but the stall holders weren't too dismayed to have unsold goods. Next weekend our village has its local fair and they will be back again, having spent all week busily making up more stock of the most popular items.
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