Simply a Moment - March 2014: A Matter of Territory

Hello hello.

It's that time again [well, actually it's a little later than that time, but Alexa's been away] when Alexa, at Trimming the Sails extends an invitation for us to join her in marking a mid month 'moment'.

To learn more Alexa has a few tips on how to record your own moments and read her very touching March moment here.

But for now, here's my own March moment ...

A Matter of Territory
Date: 15 March 2014
Time: 10.15am
Location: Community centre on crop day

Three of us have just finished setting up five collapsible tables and twice as many chairs in the glass-sided upstairs room of the community centre.

This is after already having hauled all our crafting gear up there too.

An action which, for me at least, took two trips:

1. one to carry my [oh-so-heavy-what-on-earth-have-I-got-in-here? / fossils-are-probably-forming-at-the-bottom-by-now] bag and tool tote ... meanwhile ...
2. the second trip was to drag/bounce/yank my equally weight trolley up the steps and, just to make sure I get a full cardiovascular work-out here, around a particularly tight and awkward bend in the small curved staircase.

It had dawned on me, as I was walking in from an unusually full car park, that this wasn't our usual cropping weekend.  Normally we meet on the second Saturday of the month for our crafty get-together and today's the third. [We were away on a crafting break in an old barn last weekend].

Which explains all the cars: a different group have booked one of the centre's other rooms.

And there's me thinking we'd suddenly got very popular ...

... that maybe they'd all heard about how we're always genuinely happy to share our supplies with anyone who needs it ... or how we're not cliquey and don't have strict set places to sit in [but maybe, don't sit there ... just in case] ... or maybe someone mentioned that Jean brings homemade cakes ...

But no ... it's none of that ... it's just that The Quilters are in ...

And so us Papercrafters have been shifted from our usual, large, ground floor [read: no fiddly staircase to manoeuvre] room. And there's a distinct whiff of dissatisfaction in the air ...

Apparently the part-time caretaker, surprised at seeing us here on a different day, has already consulted the diary in the office ... just to check ... which hasn't gone down well with our key-holder crop organiser ...

Nor has the fact we've been moved up here when there's another perfectly serviceable ground floor room available. Which the quilters are only using as a place to iron their works in progress. But, no matter, we've set up now and we're just going to get on with it. Or at least we were until ...

... until the second crop organiser arrives, declares that we did in actual fact book the downstairs room, there's no need for us to have been sent up here, and as longstanding customers we're going to have what we booked. Then all [genteel, perfectly civil, but still ... ] crafty hell breaks loose.

And she calls us out on what's basically a protest march. Or a very British occupation.

And we collapse and put back those five tables we set out.

And we re-stack those twice as many chairs.

And I pick up my [heavy] bag and my tote [I'll come back for my trolley] ... and we march back downstairs to claim the second best room as ours! 

It was like a Women's Institute version of West Side Story's rumble between the Sharks and the Jets.

Well ... I mean ... OK, maybe it wasn't exactly a fatal knife fight in the street ...

... but, hey, the quilters did have to move their ironing board ...

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Thanks for pausing for a moment to read mine. And, while you're in the blog-reading mood why not go treat yourself to some of Alexa's beautiful moment-capturing? You'll be glad you did.

 Julie x