Well, the Wokingham winter carnival has been and gone once more. To look at the town the morning after you would not have believed anything had taken place, all the overflowing bins had been emptied, the streets swept and hosed clean.

Our stall, called ‘Light fantastic’, raised £200 for the Thames Hospice.

We are very happy with the result, and feel all the hard work put into the displays was worth it. I even had to dash home at one point to collect more stock!

We now know what items sold the best and will be more prepared next year. (Famous last words!) I seem to remember saying that last year.

And the one before that ...

All the crates were piled up in my workshop where we dumped them afterwards, and we dosed up on our meds and slept like logs.

The general public just don’t see what goes on behind the scenes of all the stalls, they don’t see the frayed tempers and frustrations that take place, especially the night before, when every bone in our bodies screamed in protest as things inevitably went wrong!

We developed bruises from bashing our shins on crates full of stuff, RSI from all the deburring and polishing of coins for the LP clocks.

Our vision was blurred from trying to line LED lights up straight.

And on the day, our Gazebo was too tall for the pitch we were given, resulting in a frantic swap with our neighbour, and all our carefully packed boxes magically muddled up overnight.

But, you know what? I can’t wait for next year!

Thanks to all who donated so generously to the Hospice. See you next time!