An Eventful 36 Hours

The events started yesterday, when I was packing the car for Salamanca Market. A jack jumper had decided to climb onto a box that I picked up to put in the car. Of course it bit me and my hand swelled up overnight. I wish I had thought to take my ring off immediately because now I definitely can’t! Here’s a link if you’d like to read more about this rather aggressive insect that has a nasty bite https://dpipwe.tas.gov.au/Documents/jackjumperfactsheet.pdf

annoyingly swollen hand due to ant bite

After the car was packed, I headed off to the Summer Salt Music Festival held in the Botanical Gardens. It was awesome but it made it a short night with the 5 am wake up for the market the next day.

The stage at Hobart’s Botanical Gardens

The line up was Emily Wurramara, Boy & Bear, John Butler, The Teskey Brothers and finishing off with The Cat Empire. There was a strictly no dancing rule.

No Dancing

but… when The Cat Empire came on and started playing, everybody was up and dancing. The officials definitely had their work cut out trying to get people to only chair-dance.

Then it was up at the crack of dawn and setting up the stall in the dark.

my stall at site 30

It was a very busy day with people from various places from the mainland and backpackers from overseas visiting. I had caravaners from Queensland that are touring around Tasmania for 7 weeks buy “Afternoon Siesta” and “Spiky Siesta” prints. I had French backpackers, who are here for another 6 months also purchase an “Afternoon Siesta” print. A couple from Melbourne stopped in. She told me she had to get “Two to Tango” because she was from Argentina. It’s her fourth time visiting Tasmania but her first time to Salamanca Market.

Two to Tango with collage of treble clefs applied to her seductive dress

A kindergarten teacher from Queensland bought “Story time”.

Story time

Another couple from Queensland purchased three prints: “Surfing Clifton Beach, Tasmania”, “Joyride” and “Glamour Girls”. Backpackers from Chile bought an A-5 sized print of a wombat in a hammock and a couple bought an original of a platypus I painted to go with a children’s platypus book. They’re sending both to their 3 year old nephew living in Switzerland.

Afternoon Siesta

While a bunch of people were in my stall, a man told me that a lady just took one of my prints (Double Date IV”) without paying for it. I caught up with her and asked if she wanted to pay for my print and she said that she put it back on the rack. I asked her, “why is it in your bag then?” It was poking out of her bag and I could clearly see it, so I showed it to her. Then she said she got it from around the corner and started telling me that it was selling everywhere. She said she was going to report me and then started getting aggressive with the people who saw her take it. Eventually she moved on but it does leave you a little shaken.

Double Date IV

My credit card gadget worked for about 2 hours and then it just wouldn’t connect so the tapping mechanism didn’t work, leaving me with the only option to enter everything in manually, which was a pain. Then the rains came, just 20 minutes or so before we packed up. Not long enough to let things dry off, so things are drying in all sorts of places in my house.

Time for a cup of tea… and process the events of the past 36 hours. I hope that your day is going great.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers, from Patricia (PJ) Hopwood-Wade (all the images shown are available on my website at http://www.pjpaintings.com)