Well, it certainly wasn’t just potatoes!! When Simon, Martin N and I arrived to help set up things for Potato Day you could only imagine the amount of work that went on behind the scenes to run this event, but we were soon to find out!! Marjorie Watson assisted by members of the Caldbeck Gardening Club had everything planned and after twenty years of running the Gardening Club they certainly knew what they were doing!  The tables were set out in preparation for Matthew and the ‘vans’ to arrive and we all waited along with sack trolleys ready for their arrival.  The ‘vans’ were actually a massive transit van and an even bigger three-and-a-half-ton box van packed to the gunnels with stock!!

We all set to like ants busying ourselves removing trays and trays of seed potatoes, then came the onions, the bulbs, the fruit bushes, pots and pots of beautiful bulbs in bloom including bright yellow daffodils and iris and then a huge choice of fruit trees. Bags and boxes kept appearing and the vans seemed to be bottomless!  But it was all completed in good humour and efficiently by a great team.

Totally impressed with all the preparations we went home for a good rest to recharge for the morning. Expected to start at 10am the crowds were already filling the hall by 9.30am and the following four hours were amazing, and eager buyers left the hall with their bags filled with produce.   Simon, Martin and I were happy to help out and were on hand to chat with anyone who wanted to hear more about the shop project.  Martin W joined us and we all did a turn helping to sell raffle tickets but none were as capable as Ann Cartmell and Marjorie Atkinson who were super-efficient ticket sellers!

The crowds dispersed by 2pm and although now pouring with rain the whole process of filling the hall was reversed and as if by magic everything disappeared back into the vans, tables collapsed up and stored, as were the chairs and tables from the Oak room where delicious refreshments had been served by Susan, Alison and her team from Denton House.  Many brushes were deployed, and the hall floor was swept leaving poor Pat Shaw with a very soggy floor to mop up.  

As you will be aware the Gardening Club generously said that the funds raised from this years event will be donated to the shop fund for which we are most grateful and a final total has yet to be released.