It was dark and raining for most of the way there (another Weather Channel FAIL), but just a drizzle when I arrived to three very excited dogs barking their heads off at 4.30am (sorry Michelle's neighbours. And Greg who was probably trying to sleep). We decided to take a chance and filled Michelle's car to the brim with all our stuff. Seriously, we couldn't have fit anything else in - I've never seen a car packed with so much...stuff!
We got to the Ipswich Showgrounds around 5ish to find others setting up (in the dark) and got directed to our area. Luckily the sun was starting to come up so we set up our tables, put our things out and taped up our signs:
Here's Michelle setting up - along with the early birds that seem to turn up an hour before the markets actually start:
We we finished putting everything out we realised we had ALOT of stuff. Lucky we bought two tables this time instead of just the one.
Then we heard what we thought was a herd of elephants and looked up and saw massive amounts of people swarming our table. It was scary. And it was only 6.30am. It was quite overwhelming and thank god Michelle keeps calm as I tend to get a bit frazzled with people pawing through our stuff and trying to bargain us down 50c.
Michelle then commenced her favourite part of selling stuff - PRICE SLASHING! She does enjoy running around with her sharpie and crossing our prices in order the slash them.
That sharpie was also responsible for this sign - luckily Shell caught the obvious issue with 50c each or 2 for $1 and could fix it before the Ipswich residents noticed.
Greg showed up then with Macca's which temporarily revived us.
By about 9.30 most of our stuff had been sold and our table was looking sparse, but the sun was shining:
And then it got grey....and down came the rain. We had to think quick to protect our precious homewares from the elements. Out came the trusty roll of purple plastic that I bought two years ago, carry around in my boot and it has come in handy more times than I can count (in place of an umbrella running to the Def Leppard concert, sitting on, tablecloth at our last flea market and wrapping a squashed possum in.)
As we looked around and realised other stall holders had bought clear plastic to cover their precious stuff we decided to call it a day. We still had an hour and a half until the markets closed and therefore we could leave, but Hendo battered her eyelids at the man in charge....
...and he opened a back gate for us to drive out (after warning us not to hit anyone - twas all good, the only person that nearly got run over was me). We then drove to the charity bin and put most of our unsold stuff in there so we didn't have to take it home again:
Then the fun part - counting the money!!
Then the fun part - counting the money!!
Lulu helped Shell and Chaddy helped me and lo and behold (and much to our surprise) the total I counted matched exactly the total we sold! Believe me, that's not what I was expecting.
So we divided up our sweet, sweet cash:
And then it was home to bed. So very, very tired, but a little bit richer - hurrah!
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