Market

I helped out at the Saturday Market yesterday. I had to get up at 4:45 in order to be ready to go at 5:15. J and M (the farmers) were up much earlier doing some morning chores and packing the van. It was ready to go when I came down. I was feeling kind of anxious on the drive down. I'm not very good at math and I haven't practiced math on a regular basis over the past three or so years when I last had a math class. My multiplication and addition are decent (in my opinion though slow) but subtraction and division were going to be the death of me. J, M, and V (V = the other intern) showed me a way to give out change that involved adding as opposed to subtraction. That made my life a lot easier!! However, the hour and a half-ish drive down into the city I was nervous and feeling a little queasy to my stomach. I had the same sensation I normally have before I fly and wished I had a gravol just to settle it a bit. We got there a lot earlier than J normally would because he wanted to show me the ropes, introduce me to the other venders and how to set up the tables. I helped the first customer with J there helping me along. For the first two or three customers I'd freeze because we weigh the apples, lettuce and spinach and I couldn't remember what to punch into the calculator for a 1/4 pound or some other fraction. I did eventually find a routine though and I was able to help the customers in a fairly orderly fashion.

It was a good day and a pretty good experience. I like the market they go to. The vendor's aren't pushy. I went to the Peterborough market once and it was so quiet and unless there was someone standing at their stall no one would approach them. Then if you did approach the stall the vendors there were eager to make a sale and started advertising their wares and trying to get you to buy - which is a huge turn off for me. If I want to know about your product I'll ask. If I want to buy the product I will. I don't like it when people try to push me into a buy. These people were all good though and friendly. It's a lovely market. I'll be going next week too!