A very Victorian firesale

As part of our giant clearout in preparation for moving house, we bought a table for £5 at the school Wynter-Fayre (we didn't get to keep the table). We sold some train track even before the doors were open, some of our best customers were other stallholders who drooled over my extensive collection of wonderful bargains at low low prices. Then the main crowd arrived and gradually our table contents dwindled and we rearranged everything many times as dinosaurs and aircraft carriers and games and books and tambourines were purchased by my lucky customers. Erin didn't buy anything but many of my real friends did. Archie kept grabbing everything and playing with it but at least he did buy a plastic shotgun. I was a model stallholder.

I queued for ages to see the highly authentic Santa with added reindeer in his cupboard in the music room just like last year and the year before. Eventually we got bored and hungry and so Bud took the remainder to the charity shop while Jof made me lunch. After he'd taken the £5 table money back and she'd taken £10 for all her crocheted stars and flowers, I was left with £41 and a bit, Lego central here we come!

This is the cake that I made yesterday.
After lunch it was time to visit the old dockyard to see what the Royal Navy was like in the Victorian era, and how bawdy their wenches were and so forth.

We caught a bus eventually and the dockyard was very crowded. Dotted around were pickpockets, wenches, chimney-sweeps, ladies of negotiable affection, street urchins with a variety of vitamin deficiency ailments, a man on a 3-wheeled bike, soldiers, magicians, death himself, and numerous other Dickensian characters.

They circulated generally. At one point it started to snow but then we found it was fake snow, but we all believed it for a while as it was so cold it was plausible.

First thing we did was go on HMS Warrior. We went right down to the engine room and saw loads of pistols and swords and cannons and plastic rats and ropes and chains with links bigger than me and a cat'o'nine tails and more cannons. The ship's dispensary had a box called candle-sperm signal and a cupboard called medical comforts. I guess you had to pass the time somehow on those long voyages. We had a wander and saw the bawdy wenches of the Groundlings Theatrical group with their Victorian push-up bras.

As most of the rest of the dockyard seemed to be taken up by stalls we went into Fagin's pub which was warm and inviting and smelt of mulled wine, so that is where we found Erin and Beth and their parents.

A German oompah band in authentic Bavarian outfits played many happy tunes and we crowded into the mosh pit right at the front and made their lead presenter-man laugh. There was quite a lot of audience participation and silly dances and we loved it.

But then 2 bad things happened. First, the beer ran out. Then, the Austrian brass band turned out to be northeners putting on a silly accent and they finished their set, and the Archbishop of Canterbury took their place to start a church service. We decided that enough was enough and we hitched a lift in Erin's big warm car while the parents had to make do with pasties and chips from disreputable street vendors and the bus home. But not before we'd had a go on the giant gaudily lit carousel.

At Erin's house we got on with quiet play until Ben arrived for a sleepover and the group dynamic changed. We wrestled and jumped on each other and Ben kicked me in the hand and we all climbed on Bud and we had pizza and the grownups talked about wallpaper. Erin has a sheet of paper stuck up in her room with a list of swearwords that she is allowed to use. She could use real ones - but in Welsh. Nobody would know the difference (apart from Welsh people, but they don't count).

At 9-something we realised we ought to go home but none of us wanted to really. Overall I will have to give this day 9/10, it would have been more but the win on the National Lottery was only £5 so not really a castle-buying win.