the domination of mistletoe matters (for me, and a few others)

Well, I had a good National Mistletoe Day yesterday (1st Dec) – spent much of it dealing with mistletoe matters, so it must be December…

Today was no different – up at sparrowfart (aka dawn)  to do some local radio interviews on, er, mistletoe, and then off to the second Tenbury Wells Mistletoe Auction of 2008.  No pictures today – in too much of a rush.  Quick chat with a few traders, including Nick from InterRose in Suffolk, here to buy stock for his online mistletoe delivery service – which is one of the few direct competitors to Tenbury's (and partly my) own Teme Mistletoe online service.  We have a brief chat about the online mistletoe business, as one does.

But I have to rush off to pick mistletoe – on behalf of Teme Mistletoe who have a lot of orders to service this week.  The current orchard for harvesting is up above Knighton-on-Teme, through the farmyard, past the dog we've been told not to touch (not sure what happens if we do) and through the field you really really do need wellies for.  Reg (79 and 3/4) is already there, up a tree, shouting down that yesterday's haul could have been better and so we'll have to do some better quality control today…

So we sort as we go, only taking the best stuff as far as the cars, and worrying about the rest a bit later (tomorrow probably!).  Today's haul is going off to places all over the country this afternoon, via the magic of TNT Next Day Delivery.  From the tree to the customer in a day, how's that for freshness!

Some is off to a hairdressers in Essex – small sprigs as gifts for customers. But the bulk of today's crop is off to a chain of garden centres – I won't say which chain, but if you know the name of Harry Potter's helpful house-elf you'll have a good clue.

Later this week there's mistletoe going to other garden centres, lots of private customers and for some weekend weddings.  And this is just the first week of December…

But before it gets packed I have to rush off again, leaving Alec and Reg to pack the boxes back at base without me.  I've got the mistletoe-hungry media to satisfy as well and have been fielding calls from various contacts all day on and off.  This can get a weeny bit tiresome after a while – but media work is fun work too – and gives me an excuse to get out to sites I've not seen for a while.

This afternoon its a recce for a well-known BBC TV countryside prog – more on that next week – and my choice of venue is Teddington, just east of Tewkesbury, where Simon and Rebecca have been doing their own version of mistletoe marketing from a neglected fruit farm orchard since last December.  More on that later too – all I'll say for now is that Simon has just got back from London having delivered a big load of his mistletoe to Covent Garden Market today… 

And then it get's dark, so it's time to go home and read the emails and listen to the voicemails. 

Back to Tenbury first thing tomorrow…