I GET LITERALLY KICKED TO THE KERB AT UCL (1)

As the holiday period for Students drew to an end, Yours truly was really looking forward to returning to UCL . No, I am not a student there, neither is it my Alma Mater. I have had a market stall at the monthly food market  currently run by KERB Foods since January. However, my association with the Great institution began much earlier. In December 2010 to be precise. Then,my company was  was invited by a market organizer named Angela Cash  to trade at the Christmas Fair and It was love at First Trade!

I now reminisce . Ingrid, my friend and fellow trader who sold Falafel  at Camden market had phoned me on Monday following a very bad weekend trading at Camden to ask if I met the "the woman" hunting traders for her event at UCL. I told her to expatiate. And she did.  During the humdrum that was business in Camden that Sunday this woman had come armed with pen and paper taking details of Stallholders and their numbers and inviting almost every trader from the West Yard to what she promises will be a very busy event.But you had to pay up front and the fee equalled what we paid in Camden but the fair was to be held  on a weekday. This was new territory for us. I had taken the leap and expanded to Greenwich market when the management at Camden began flooding it with so much food .So ,Ingrid  wanted to know if I would be brave enough to take the risk. I said it depended on whether" the woman "contacted me as I was sure my staff would have given her my number but that It was more likely than not that I would do it. Food markets rarely do well at Christmas because Tourists are less about and visitors to markets favour Arts and Craft stalls as they search for presents for their loved ones.So, it made sense to find more trading opportunities.

Later that day I got a call from the market organiser. I said I will be happy to trade at UCL. I rang Ingrid back"I am doing UCL" I said."Me too but do you think Falafel would sell there?" I don,t know Ingrid but you make the best Falafel so I wouldn,t worry about not selling. I am in the same boat as you.This is uncharted territory for me as well.
The weather forecast the week before the Christmas fair was bleak. It was going to snow continuously for 3 days was the prediction. We prayed that the forecasters get it wrong as they were prone to do.They,d got it wrong on so many occasions that we were hopeful that it will only snow for one day max. I remember one August bank holiday when storm was forecast and I,d decided that  I was going to trade at Camden, storm or drought and the storm never came.But damn! the forecasters got it right this time. 3 days before the event,it was still snowing and London,s streets looked as white as The White company,s Linen sheets!.Our worry transcended the students bothering to walk the slippery pavements to patronise the market. We  the traders work with various heavy cooking utensils and propane gas that we carried with us.Even I, who rarely cancelled markets  was beginning to wonder how to cut my impending costs. Should I go to this Fair ? Should I not?  I wrestled with my thoughts and decided to minimise my overhead should the students and staff not bother turning up  because of the adverse weather condition. I will not attend with any staff. I shall  blackmail my daughter into  coming with me!. She wanted a Blackberry that Christmas and that  sort of  Berry did not grow on trees! I could already here her protest about the freezing conditions and why she couldn,t come along but I was certain that the thought of owning the new phone will trump her fear of working in the snow .
I gave myself 45 minutes to get to UCL on the day of the Fair and hit an almighty traffic jam on the A40. The road was gritted but motorists were being very cautious as every travel update warned us to be wary of black ice. Ingrid rang while I was still stuck in traffic. "Where are you Kiru? Everyone ,s set up and the woman is calling for your blood"  "She can have my blood when I get there but till then, I am stuck in traffic." I replied  "You are always stuck in traffic" she said sarcasm in her voice. "We didn,t get here by helicopter you know we all had to drive to this place and we all made it in time" "Is it busy then are you selling?"I asked ignoring her lecture. "No and my feet is drenched. The snow has not been cleared where the stalls are set up so that if you are not wearing insulated waterproof shoes , it is really atrocious" I wondered  again whether to turn back.My daughter advised that we did  but I carried on. I arrived an hour late.
"What time do you call this Ms Cash barked as the security at UCL reluctantly allowed my van through the gates. ".I told her to check her phone as I had left messages for her because I was trapped in traffic.She gave me 10 minutes to unload.
As we unloaded, I gladly noticed that the students were braving the adverse weather and were indeed coming out and queueing up in front of the food stalls and that the Sausage stall especially was very busy. This may yet be worth it I thought.
From the moment I was ready to sell, I had a queue. Now, dear reader, this was how my love affair with UCL began.The weather was nasty and I was late but I was fairly busy regardless.This is the litmus  test every seasoned trader set themselves before deciding on continuing to trade at any market. If you break even on a day like this , GRAB that market with both hands . The uni loved  my food. I made a mental note to love it back.Now if only Ingrid was having a ball like I was. Ingrid suddenly appearead.  I took one look at her face and noted that she wasn,t  and her words that followed confirmed it. "I cant believe it Kiru you mean you came late and you got the best spot? You have an almighty queue.! I want to leave now .It is dark where we are.I have only sold 6 portions of Falafel. I wish I  hadn,t come. I wanna go home now"! She whined. I couldn,t say anything to her as I was busy  attending the  queue . Moments after  Ingrid walked back to her stall, I could hear her demand a return of her fees from Angela. But I had a different kind of worry;How do I become a regular feature at UCL?

FARA MY OLD FRIEND AND EX STAFF GETS ON MY NERVES

It was a very wintry cold January morning, when I agreed to test drive a neighbours van round the industrial estate  where I cooked. I,d lost my van to agents of DVLA last july(more on this at some point in the future).I decided to quickly head to the local Asda .There were loads of bargain to be had probably saving me more money than my local cash and carry on many items. I cut out the engine and decided to start the engine impromptu again and as I revved the engine again and again, I saw from my mirror a woman carrying grocery  loose her balance and drop to the ground, her shopping scattering all around her. Another motorist got to her aid before I could. As the motorist helped  her up I noticed she looked frail and harassed but her face rekindled a warm  memory in me . I soon reconciled the face. It was Fara . We had worked together at my first job as a student in the early nighties. Why? I thought had she not aged into a vintage beauty. She used to be very pretty with huge brown eyes and a mass of unruly curly hair that  cascaded  down her back. Whatever happened to my old friend I thought. Life must have been cruel to her as she looked a shadow of her old self." Fara you ok? remember me Kiru from St Martins.?"
"I remember you she said" and burst into tears.
We both thanked the good Samaritan and after gathering her groceries, proceeded to  Asda,s Cafe so she could recuperate before continuing on her journey home. I found that  Fara had been injured somehow at the old factory where we worked by over exposure to freezing working conditions.   During our conversation she continued to be very teary  and this concerned me." Can I come and work for you"? She asked" I don,t want any payment  you can pay me whatever you want I am not greedy." she continued. She laughed when I suggested she might yet regret that no payment offer as January was always the most difficult time for our business in terms of cash flow.
Hastily and forgeting that  cardinal rule of business, I offered her a job that I really didn,t have to offer. I hated cleaning and having fired my kitchen assistant on the day I had my baby last year, I had been waiting for business to pick up before hiring another help.
Fara brought Sparkle into my kitchen from the moment she handled the mop head.I didn,t think my good old Cookworks fryer could look any newer. she meticulously and patiently scrubbed new life into old and tired equipments. I was tempted to ring my nemesis at my local environmental health office and invite her for an inspection  so I can gloat. She always complained of my unwillingness to throw away old equipments and declutter my unit. But   caution reigned over premature exuberance. And rightly so. For of course, though I paid Fara money the company couldn,t really afford ,for Job I needed done, she did not see this as proper work and talked far too much about every single thing relevant,important or not and this of course impacted on my ability to work quickly and efficiently.Yours truly is currently permanently sleep deprived owing to my two beautiful toddlers bless them! Any one who has ever worked with me including and especially the boyfriend knows that I hate being spoken to when I am cooking.How do I get fragile Fara to shut up? Worse still she knew my work time table so that even when I told her that I didn,t need her she would still turn up and help and I would   be obliged to pay her.
During that hot spell in June when Londoners advisedly ate little I ceased the opportunity to steel my resolve to gently lay her off. "Fara" I began as she peeled some maris piper  with a small pen knife she,d insisted on bringing from home.(she didnt like using potato peelers!) "I think you need to take a break next week. I won,t be working because of the hot spell. We are not making any money at the markets" ." I,d been thinking of setting up my own street food company"!  she blurted out in response."Wow that,s that,s brilliant I lied, flabbergasted and genuinely worried for my old friend.  "You  must tell me what to do , which markets to trial,how much I would need to invest, where to buy my equipments ......." " Enough already Fara  THIS job is not easy and I don,t think you are strong enough to take the knocks and  grind of this industry" .Despite my best efforts to dissuade her from taking this plunge ,she stuck to her gun so  I gave up and cursed the day DVLA impounded my van because the boyfriend forgot to pay the road tax.I would not have test driven my neighbour,s van  to Asda and would certainly  not have bumped  into Fara and would not therefore be party to the impending heartache she will  inevitably experience especially with the charlatans that run some of  markets she will  trial .I  arranged for her to take a basic food hygiene course and to obtain public liability insurance and reluctantly gave her details of two starter markets .Two weeks later the daily phone moans began. First it was "How very labour intensive the business was" then it was the shafting of the market organisers,then what did I think about her abandoning her original cuisine and cooking falafels instead?.
Untill further notice, my daughter is under instruction to sweetly dismiss Fara,s calls with "My mum will call you back later" surely my sanity comes before friendship.!