Well, it’s all done and dusted.  A few tables to return to the church I borrowed them off, and I need to return my bits of railway to the loft room.  That might wait a couple of days whilst I spring clean the area whilst its missing a few things.

I’ll post some pictures (and Brian’s video) next time, but today is a rest day – apart from setting out all the chairs in the church this morning, and I suspect I’ll look at the accounts later.

But we had a very successful day.  I didn’t have any idea how many people would come along, but we cleared about 120 adults at the door.  Not many older children, but a good number of small, free entry ones, who generally either enjoyed Thomas or a piece of cake with the refreshments.

Just a couple of observations today.  We tried e-commerce and a card reader for the first time.  It generally worked pretty well, with just the odd glitch, and was especially useful for expensive club shop sales.

The other interesting one was that pre-covid, there would have been a queue at the door for opening time – presumably to fight for any shop bargains.  We had one person yesterday, that was a bit worrying!  What we saw was a steady flow of people through the day, with just a few less in the afternoon, and of course the usual ‘dead’ last hour.  Perhaps some enthusiasts are timing their visits to shows to avoid the crush hour?  Or perhaps we pulled in a good number of local people, being situated in the middle of housing, and having a banner on the church railings beforehand?

I did enjoy seeing acquaintances from a range of places – model railways, church (including our toddler group), local community, and an ex-work colleague.  I talked too much, drank a lot of coffee, ate cake, carried out troubleshooting (generally with the e-card reader or the coffee machine) and built up an appetite for the traditional curry after the show.

Pictures follow next time.