Annie Stines
Annie, like Ian has been a wonderful friend over the last 20 years of craft fairs. She works harder than anyone I know at her craft, selling her fudge for all its worth. There is always a crowd around her stand in Jersey and some other craft workers get jealous, but if they put in half the effort Annie does then they would not be complaining. She also knows how to enjoy herself and loves a drink.
Lets face it, she loves lots of drinks, Black Russian being a favourite. If there was mischief to be up to then she lead the way. In one large hotel in Jersey, ( closed now, actually a lot of hotels closed down after we had stayed there ) she persuaded the rest of us to rearrange the breakfast tables in to another room.
This was around 2 am and I was really hung over next day, and wasn't around to see the mayhem at breakfast time. Once we were staying in the same hotel ( seperate rooms ) near the M25 while doing a weekend fair so she left her car and went in mine to the hotel.
On returning next morning to the show we pulled up alongside a queue of craft workers waiting to enter the hall, she left the car saying loudly " Thanks Eric that's the best night i've ever had". The one thing I learned about Annie was at breakfast. She hogged the butter especially in the Channel Islands. the toast was only used as a carrier.
In the early days at Jersey and Guernsey she would end up with lots and lots of 50p pieces. When ever we went out to a restaurant, Chinese, Indian, French, Italian etc. ( it was a hard life ), she would take our money, usually there were about eight of us, and proceed to count out and pay the bill in 50p's. Embarrasing was not the word. And shopping, if the olympics had a shopping section Annie would get gold every time. As we didn't start in Jersey until 2pm we would have mornings wandering by ourselves around St. Helier and then all meet at Fridays or Cafe de Paris ( local bistros ) for lunch and a pint.
She would turn up with shopping bags from every main store, whereas Ian, Jan and I would have a newspaper or magazine. There was no room left in the bar after she put down all her purchases. Nor was there any air to breath because Ian had been to all the perfume shops trying the free samples. Every spare bit of skin had a different scent and when he moved, it wafted round the bar causing grown men to faint. More of Annie, Jan, Ian etc later.
Published: 27th May 2006 | Back to Watercolour Memories.
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