Fast forward a couple of years. I'd been harping on a bit about this for some time, maybe starting to get some odd looks. But now, it formed my main plan, one of my many get-rich-quick schemes to get back to Oz as soon as poss. And I thought I could corner the market -but then, suddenly, it was everywhere. Onimpresent, like a very triangular tipping point explosion only Malcolm Gladwell would understand. I had to move fast, and think of an angle. So, I reckoned - what is an English Summer? And I didn't think strawberries, teadresses and the thwack of leather on willow...no, I thought, folks want to be having a lovely time in the garden but it's always pissing it down. Let's face it, the weather's shite here in Summer. So, if you're a bunting fancier, you can't be arsed constantly taking it down every downpour. Here lies my stroke of genius.
I made waterproof bunting. But not tacky shit, like the polyester stuff adorning every dodgy Wetherspoons throughout the World Cup. No, it was a thing of kitsch beauty, candy coloured, bunting Cath Kidston would give her antique floral tits for. And the shiny yummy mummies of Crouch End love it. And the glitterati too (celeb count so far: Kirstie "Queen Of Property and Poshness" Allsop, and Emma "that fit bird off Big Brother thing married to Busted fella" Griffiths...male friend description). I'm sure they all think it's being made by some domestic goddess, bit of a Nigella in a polka dot apron, on a huge scrubbed pine kitchen table, homemade jam bubbling away on the Aga, ringlet-haired kids skipping round...but no. It's being made by me, sporting worn out denim and extra eyeliner, on a 25 year old sewing machine, cutting out on any space I can find as hop from one friend's spare room to another like the Littlest Hobo I am.
And now the boys at The Haberdashery (lovely Crouch End cafe where they sell my wares - more of them later) tell me that Vogue want to do a photoshoot in the tea garden, where my bunting takes pride of place, which could potentially send me into bunting overdrive...now if only Her Madge would make an order for THE garden party...
