First Day of Pocktorian Textiles

I am SOOOOOO tired, I may not write straight, but the first day obviously deserves a post.

I arrived at the Looses building where our two rooms are on the first floor before 10 AM. Oops. The building doesn’t open until 10. So I had to stand and wait for about 15 minutes. It wasn’t anywhere near to the last standing I would do during the day.

When the door finally opened, I went on up to our rooms and found then filled with various bits of furniture, old signs, foam panels, and a set of drums. I was very glad that I hadn’t loaded up a taxi with all the things I plan to bring from home

Fine. Who expects things to go smoothly the first day of anything?

There was no heat, either. Trust me, there is no textile process that is best done with gloves on except dyeing fabric or yarn, or perhaps gathering nettles if you happen to be in a fairy tale and required to make nettle shirts.

I arranged for as much stuff as possible to be moved from the rooms, and sat down in front of a tiny space heater in another area to wait for this to happen. Within a few hours, it did.

I absconded with the space heater to my space. After all the rent is supposed to include heat and electricity. The way I saw it was the landlord could either turn on the radiators or provide heat via the electricity and the space heater. (Will the space heater still be there tomorrow? Will the radiators be turned on?)

I found out that I could pick up some furnishings I am scavenging (via BizFizz loan) from a downsizing shop, but I couldn’t go there until my first designer arrived to man the space while I was gone in case a prospective designer stopped by to look the space over. Meanwhile, with the room where I’d put the heater empty, I had no place to sit, for hours.

I absconded with a chair. Not a particularly comfortable chair. The price on it was £5 but the owner would probably entertain lower bids. First designer arrived with as much of her own stuff as would fit in a car. Thank goodness I had managed to get some of our space cleared out. Now I could go get the furnishings.

I headed over to the source, calling a cab/van on the way. One of the things I had scavenged was a large (longer than my arms fully spread by about 2 feet and at least 3 ft deep) desk heavy enough to make 4 people struggle with it. Try as we might, and we tried for some time, several ways, we could NOT make that desk fit in the cab/van, let alone fit in the rest of the furnishings with it.

This was when it came in very handy to have our space in the Looses building which usually has several vans in back either dropping things off or delivering. I was able to hire (by phone) the same two guys who had done the space clearing.

I went outside to wait for them, and there they were coming down the street. Yay! I hopped up and down. I waved my hands wildly. They drove right by. A few minutes later they called. I told them they had driven right by me a few minutes before. They went round the block and I watched them head back  up the street…..in the wrong direction. Then followed about ten minutes of me hopping and waving wildly at any and all white vans heading in my direction, making a total fool of myself because they weren’t the right white van! Finally the right one came and we got the furnishings to our rooms.

That was enough for me for the first day. I left an hour and a half later than I had planned. Well, they warned me setting up a business would involve a large investment of time and energy. Tomorrow, I’ll make sure I get something to eat between breakfast and when I come home!

I have pictures of the space before and after the clearing out. I also have pictures of the other amenities, like toilets and the kitchen, with a microwave and refrigerator and kettles, but I’m far too tired to reduce and post them.

First day, nothing brought in, outlay for moving the furnishings, but I won’t pay the rent till the other room is clear.