As you may know, I had to leave India fairly abruptly due to visa issues arising from my previous boss not wanting me to work anymore. So home I went, back to a life of playing with my sisters babies, eating all round me, attempting to learn Hindi and generally having an easy time of it. I got another Visa with no real drama or hardship, caught up with some old friends and planned for my happy return to Indian soil.
To make my return less stressful I decided to embark on a little enterprise making and selling holly wreaths, as my sister has done for years. I hoped to make enough to pay for a few months rent and some other set up costs, so I aimed to make 100 wreaths and sell them at 15 Euro each over a weekend just before Christmas. So after a good few cold hours in the garage, a few trips to the canal bank to liberate some holly and two trips to a florist supply shop, I ended up making 80 very nice wreaths if I may say so myself!
To sell them, I packed up Mums car, (thanks Mum!) and took over my sisters regular spot on the side of the road in a nearby town. 5 days I spent sitting in sub zero temperatures trying to sell the dam things. I started out hopeful, but my sister had warned me that day one is always slow. Not one did I sell on day one, only 5 on day two and after dropping my price to 12 Euro, six on day three.
Day four, a Saturday, brought a surprise in the form of another seller! Another girl arrived and set up at the other end of the bus stop! The cheek! She was selling wreaths too, but not holly wreaths. she put up a sign saying ‘only 10 euro’, bitch! So I dropped my price to 10 Euro. It worked out very well for me, people saw her, slowed down and pulled up to me! I sold about 30, and I think half were due to her!
One woman even stopped and while looking at my wreaths said:
‘competition for you there’
‘not really’, I said ‘she has no holly in hers, and anyway me and my sister have been selling here for 20 years, we get the odd competition now and again but they never last’
‘Well’, she said, ‘in that case I’ll take two from you!’
I was delighted! It warmed my heart, but not as much as when various family members arrived to let me run off and pee! Mum even brought me chicken soup! I got so cold during those days that when I got home in the evenings my whole body hurt to warm up. It was like a full body bruise.
It was all worth it when I took my hard earned bundle of cash to the bank!
