Trading Places

So was it worth it?
Was it worth getting up at 5:10am on a Sunday morning?
Was it worth trudging down to the shower before the heating had kicked in?
Was it worth loading up my car with seven large boxes of books and nearly 300 CDs before the sun had crept over the tops of the trees?
The answer was a resounding YES!



I doubted today would go well, even as we drove up to the Market today I had my doubts (my first fear was that wouldn't get a pitch, due to the fact that we could already see that it was a nice day).. But as soon as I parked the car outside our stall we got early indications that things were going to go well. Before we'd even got anywhere near halfway unloading, there were tonnes of people looking around the boxes (some of which were still in the boot).
In fact the intial interest in the crap we had to sell was a little overwhelming at first. We later found out that first thing in the morning is when professional traders come to snap up the bargains.. hence one bloke bought nearly seventy CDs in a single transaction and another just bought a whole box of paperbacks (about 40 books in all) - and all this was in the first hour!!!
It was a fun day actually, haggling over prices, seeing people browsing through your stuff and getting a very welcome bacon butty about eight o'clock in the morning- bliss.
And, we made about £200 profit and sold most of what we had to get rid of to make way for the nursery. Yeah, we came back with a couple of boxes of books (most of which will be heading to Oxfam tomorrow) and about 100 CDs (which will be a mixture of eBay auctions, and charity shop donations), but we got rid of a lot of crap today and made some cash too! Fantastic!!
Oh and we picked up a little something for the yet unborn baby K too, just to fit in with the theme of "Winnie the Pooh" that we're going for in the nursery:

Roll up.. Roll up.. Roll up..

This weekend I will be doing my best to emulate the giddy professional heights of the career of Martin Fowler.  No, I'm not going to go upstairs to wash my hands and disappear for five years (only to reappear looking completely different), nor kill anyone in a careless driving incident, nor get involved with a trumpet-playing-and-secretly-lesbian-boot.  No, none of that.. but I will be running my own market stall.. (apologies for the blatant Eastenders reference to anyone who doesn't watch the Beeb's flagship soap, by the way)

Well, a car boot stall anyway..
Aye, it's finally time for the great "Baby On The Way Clearance Sale" which aims to empty my spare room in readiness for its transformation into a nursery.

Unlike most car boots, this is not being hosted in the middle of some remote muddy field, but on a proper local market (which has permanent stalls and everything) which means we have a lot of space on which to actually display our stuff. 

Which is quite handy really, because we started getting stuff together over the weekend and already we have approximately 300 CDs to sell (£1.50 each - or 5 for £5, step right up for a bargain!).  Actually, there are some really good CDs in there, and I want the personal sacrifice that is being made here by selling so many of them noted, please.  Thanks.  It's an eclectic mix that's being sold too (as we've combined our CD collections to sell), so you've got everything from Black Sabbath to Blue, from Testament to Justin Timberlake and from Carcass to Dina Carroll(!?).  We also have two big boxes full of paperbacks filled so far (50p your paperback books now ladies and gentlemen, that's a lot of book for your buck, roll up roll up) and this has partially cleared the bookcase, but the job's only half done really. Funny though, books by David Eddings and Stephen King occupy nearly half a box each on their own!!  Who knew we had such author loyalty!?

So early on Sunday morning (you have to get there by six to get a pitch) we'll be rolling up with a boot full of stuff to flog.  Hopefully the locals will be buying!