It is many years since I have been at a market at Farnham Maltings, the only reason I was there today was for a French stall.
A freezing cold day, barely above zero, strong wind and wind chill making colder still.
I alighted from the bus, walked along the riverside walk to Farnham Maltings.
The French stall was outside. I should have got what I wanted and left, but I thought no this is England go in first, maybe if I am lucky, find something to eat.
Shocked and annoyed had to pay a pound to enter the building.
Over 100 stalls each paying £75 for their pitch.
A little cafe in the foyer, impossible to remain due to the dreadful noise from a group of tone deaf people playing ukuleles.
I commented to one of the traders. She replied we have had two days of this and someone playing a penney whistle was even worse.
I looked in the main hall, nothing of interest.
The dreadful noise from the ukuleles had stopped. But it was only a temporary reprieve, followed by keyboard and penny whistle. It was hard to imagine anything worse than what had gone before, but this was worse.
As I wandered around the main hall, I noticed people with takeaway cups. Why? This is a captive market, it is not people grabbing a takeaway and running down the street.
The soup, long time coming, served in a takeaway cup, plastic spoon and knife stuffed in a card box with a bit of bread.
Do they not care about the environment? Apparently not. 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups thrown away every year, and Farnham Maltings doing their best to keep the numbers up.
I took my takeaway into a little coffe shop.
The soup was awful.
I asked what the coffee was. Cupsmith. Not good.
I chanced a cappuccino. I had to shout at the girl not to dump chocolate, as I had seen two served with chocolate dumped on top.
My cappuccino looked disgusting, and tasted even worse. It was very unpleasant. This was not only the lack of skills of the person making the coffee, I would not insult baristas by calling a barista, it was also the poor quality coffee being used.
A strange Viennese mince pie.
I decided to leave, maybe time to catch the butcher, maybe even a coffee at Krema.
I was not going to visit Krema, I thought whilst in Farnham Maltings, I would try their coffee, a big mistake, therefore maybe grab a coffee in Krema.
As I was leaving, I noticed more stalls upstairs. Only interesting stall I found was iron works.
Then as I was leaving I noticed more stalls downstairs.
Cupsmith had a stall, a lady with different lenses could add to a mobile phone, including a pouch that had five different lenses. And a guy doing tours of vineyards and breweries.
A chat with the Cupsmith stall. I was asked had I tried their coffee? Yes, and it was disgusting. That did not go down too well. She made the ludicrous assertion that it was not London and no one outside London knew how to make coffee, The bags of coffee have silly names, nothing obvious like country of origin or roast date. I was told customers did not want roast date. The lady running the stall impressed me with her lack of knowledge. She had not a clue what was Q grade let alone the Q grade of the coffee she was selling. This was a roastery selling their coffee, or trying to. What is the point of manning a stall and cannot handled questions on coffee?
Lady with the different lenses, had tripods, and solar-powered power banks. I picked up a couple of the solar-powered power banks.
Note: Power banks proved to be faulty.
Interesting chat about wine with with the guy running the vineyard tours. I recommended read The Devil’s Cup.
A chat with the French guys running their stall. By now very very cold.
I picked up a small jar of honey, nuts and a couple of large tomatoes. It was a pity all the walnuts had gone. I regret I did not buy any of their onions.
Anyone wishing to find this French stall and their quality produce, they will be at the Winchester street food market on Wednesday 20 December 2017.
Had I not decided to visit Waitrose, I would have caught the train as not too far to the station.
I never did make it to the butcher.
Tags: Christmas market, Farnham Maltings, Farnham Maltings Christmas Market
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