People, people, people

everywhere. They came in a steady stream through the door. 
There were people waiting when we arrived to set up our "information" stall.
We were among the last to arrive yesterday morning. Our stall was simple to set up. We weren't selling anything - except places and ideas perhaps. 
There was just time to catch up with a vendor I know and pick up something I had asked her to bring for an elderly friend. Then we were hard at it. 
    "I didn't realise there was such a market for this sort of thing," someone said to me.
    "I didn't know so many people were interested in knitting," someone else said.
They kept coming through the door. The age range varied from very young to very old.  The female sex far outstripped the male sex but there were men there - and not just because they had come with their partners. One man spent several minutes going through the list I had made as we tried to find a knitting group somewhere within reach that might fit his odd working hours. The railway worker I had once shown how to turn the heel of a sock gave me a wave and mouthed "More sock wool!"
The entry fee - to help cover the massive insurance costs of such an event - was just a gold coin. That meant a dollar or, sometimes, two dollars. Even then you were given a raffle ticket and had a chance to win something yarn related.
I didn't need to worry about that. There were a couple of enthusiastic teenagers dealing with the incomers. No, "all" I needed to do was pass out information.
I had spent a considerable amount of time in the couple of weeks  prior to the event trying to check on the many small knitting and crochet groups around the state. I had emailed people and - sometimes - managed to get responses. I had made lists. 
I had made a list of "useful internet sites" and more. 
Another member of the library based group I belong to had taken me and all the bits and pieces to the venue. She did a sterling job of talking to people, so did another member of the group. They left me to pass out information, to field queries about knitting.  Questions like which vendors might have which sort of yarn were passed on to me. There were questions about knitting.
       "Hello Cat"
       "Thought you might be here Cat."
       "Hoped I might see you here Cat."
I didn't realise how many people I know - however casually - through the world of yarn.  The only problem is that they know me and my name (because I am wearing a name tag) but I have no idea what their names are because I have never seen their names and they have never told me. Oh well. 
Later in the morning the youngest member of the library group arrived. She brought her pom-pom makers and sat there making those.  
         "How do you use those?" "Where did you get them?" "What are you going to do with all those pom-poms?" 
At thirteen years of age she handled all the questions as if she was an adult. When she left a couple of hours later I asked, "If they have another one next year will you come again." 
Oh yes, she will be back.
I went to mind the stall of a vendor who was on her own so she could go to do something urgent - and sold something. Helping my friend P.... has been a good experience in feeling at least a little confident about this sort of thing.  
While I was there a woman I know very slightly, a customer of P...'s at craft fairs, came to see me. She is profoundly deaf, a friend of the man I had seen in the shopping centre. Yes, I had helped her friend and she was delighted to see me. She showed me a picture on her phone of something she had made from yarn she bought from P... She showed me more yarn she had bought that day and told me she was going to use one of my patterns.  If nothing else good had happened that - and a lot of good things happened - that would have been enough.
I had given our guild stall all the tiny packets I had made up and someone came to return the two plastic boxes I had put them in. They had not sold all of them. I didn't expect that but they had apparently sold a good many. I don't expect to hear any more about that but I am glad that some of the packets went and won't be wasted. 
At about five minutes before closing the friend who had brought me and I looked at each other. We each took a deep breath and let it out slowly. We'd done it...and, next year, we might do it again.