This time a year ago I had a strange bus-experience on Remembrance Sunday, and this year was interesting again.

This time, I was stuck in traffic at Victoria on the way to the Notting Hill Design Fair. I had just crawled around an accident in front of the Apollo Theatre, only to find myself at a grinding halt at the next corner. Five minutes went by - the traffic lights were changing but nothing was moving. Then a policeman appeared and spoke to the drivers at the front of the queue. The man in the silver merc next to me got out to see what was happening. Then, in response to my quizzical look, he came over to my humble van.

"Fifteen minutes delay," he said. It was 11am, and the two minutes' silence had just started.

"Where are you off to?" my new friend asked. I told him and asked the same of him. He was in finance and said he was selling Spanish gas. "What a coincidence," I said, gesturing to the sign on my van. "I sell Spanish rugs!"

We talked for a bit longer and then got into our respective vehicles to wait. And how peaceful it was! Amazingly, everyone seemed to understand what was happening. There was no impatient honking. All around, cars had switched off their engines and I suspect some drivers, like me, were taking the chance to think about big issues like war and peace, and put things into perspective.

Before long, the ceremony finished and the traffic was moving again. And how calm everyone was! I found myself wishing we could all take 15 minutes out a little more often. I felt rather serene and reflective all day.

Phew! It's been ages since the last post, mainly because I've taken on the shop (my first ever) in Kirkdale, London SE26.

I have to say, it's been great! I'm housed in the newly-listed High Street Buildings, so named because Kirkdale used to be the home of Sydenham High Street (which is now on Sydenham Road). Kirkdale is a peaceful little spot, well clear of the hurly burly of the main drag and handily within comfortable walking distance of Forest Hill, too. (That's going to be good when they finally get the swimming pool re-opened!)

I'm cosily positioned between Foxes pub and Avalon Victorian fireplace shop, with a funky costume hire shop (Antoinette's) a bit further down and a new beautician, JH Skincare (also moved from East Dulwich), almost opposite. There's a Victorian door shop, an art deco shop and a super Italian restaurant, too. It's all on the up, as they say.

One of the best things so far has to be my customers. Ever since the doors opened in late August, a steady stream of people has been coming in to say hello and wish me well. I've already got a few regulars – like my Thursday afternoon pilates ladies who visit after their class each week for tea and cake, and various local mums and others coming in for a bit of a browse and a chat. I've even had gifts - a banana plant for the garden for example - and I've hosted a reception for an Armenian christening party spanning time and space with several generations coming from as far afield as Australia! Fabulous!

I'm also very lucky to have a great team of helpers. There are four regulars apart from myself: Sarah who makes the gorgeous handpainted china in the shop, Ronel who imports the fabulous wirework, Helen who bakes the cakes and Zoe, my unofficial mentor, who also arranges local micro markets such as the one in Beckenham Public Hall most Wednesdays. For more info please pop in and see us - we are open Tues to Sat 10am-6pm, Thurs til 8pm and Sunday 12noon-4pm.

As they might say in Spain, it's all been estupendo!

It's been a little while since my last post because I've been laid low with a bit of a bug. I cranked myself back into gear this week, though, and by the weekend had enough energy to return to North Cross Road market and launch our Mother's Day offers. It's actually been really nice. North Cross Road was fun on Saturday and E.D. Warehouse was great today. A little café launched there this weekend - Constance Cakes. Anne-Marie, the proprietor, sells all kinds of tea and homemade cakes, as well as toasties and truffles. It's a very welcome addition.

We've also got Tablet Living opposite the cakes. Talk about fabulous garms! The two ladies in charge, Lydia and Rena, are great - and they look great, too, as are usually wearing their own lines. Fabulous knits, fine woven silks, sumptuous fabrics in daring colours, all enhanced with the scents of precious perfumes and oils... they have some beautiful quilts and homewares, too.

I'd also like to big-up my new helper, Jo the actress (noted previously in this blog for her impressive carol-singing skills). Some of you may have met her already, because she's been covering my unit at E.D. Warehouse when I'm out on the market or, like last week, just taking a bit of a breather. She's been super helpful and efficient, and it's not just me who thinks so - the customer feedback form is full of praise!

Had an interesting customer today, too. She told me about 'clippy mats', otherwise known as 'hooky', 'proggy' or 'clouty' (cloth) mats. Until the 1950s, these handmade mats were seen in many northern homes. To make bare floorboards more comfortable, clippy-mat rugs would be made from cast-off clothes, cut up into strips and worked into canvas on a frame. The old textiles were also turned into wall hangings and other three-dimensional forms. My customer told me, nostalgically, that many families had their own individual designs - a kind of crest. Who knows, perhaps the current recession will see a revival in this kind of inventive, eco-friendly practice. Let's hope so!

Well, while the UK was shivering under a foot or more of snow, I was out in Spain on the first rug-buying mission of 2009. It was warm and sunny, and felt like the English spring that is yet to come (we hope). Cold at night, though, so I was glad of my trusty wood-burning stove.

The rug buying went well and, weather permitting, a couple of tons will be landing in London next weekend. I feel as if I made several new friends this visit, having been fed twice by the family of my new supplier. It is hungry work selecting the rugs, and the Spanish believe in healthy, nutritious meals. So civilised! A shortage of flights meant I started the trip in Madrid where they have a whole network of apparently posh lunch joints where you get a three course foodie 'menu del dia' with a caraffe of wine for just 10 Euros. Just what the doctor ordered!

I do hope some of you will come to Dulwich to see the new rugs soon. And if you don't live in London, don't despair. The pix will be up on the website by the end of the month.

Hasta pronto amigos!

... because somehow, in the midst of the pre-Christmas rush, our community garden group managed to pull off a carol concert!

As you may know by now, community gardening is what keeps me happy when I'm not selling the rugs, and this time it was great to see how everyone worked together to make the concert happen. Katie made flyers which she, Sarah, Ian and I delivered. A local vicar provided carol sheets. James donated wine and Roz mulled it. Ginny made mince pies. Saira and James brought lanterns and, in a last minute flurry, we all met at my place opposite the community garden to get the show on the road.

The vicar, who was going to lead the singing, pulled out at the last moment (with carol-fatigue), but Katie's dad, who used to be a vicar, gamely stepped in. At 7pm precisely, the chorus began.

There was only a handful of us at first, but throughout the hour the number grew to about 50, and mulled wine and mince pies were flying out of my kitchen like there was no tomorrow. Little by little, the singing started to sound great. Everyone got in tune, and with actress Jo and her friends throwing in a good few harmonies, they seemed to be having a great time.

I'm no singer myself, so I stuck to serving drinks and taking photos. I must confess, I did feel a bit of a warm glow. This time last year, our community garden was just a flytipped bit of wasteland. Now, it's become a place where people meet and make things happen. So, recession or not, in 2009 it's going to be onwards and upwards with the plants - and who knows what the next event will be? Art exhibition along the wall, anyone...?

It's been a tiring few days. Interesting, though. On Friday I took the rugs to a school fair in Streatham, then it was back to North Cross Road on Saturday and on Sunday I drove up to Hampstead Heath at the crack of dawn for the Cabbages and Frocks Christmas market.

So, what was interesting about it?

Well, first of all, there's your fellow traders at these events. At Streatham, I met a lovely lady from Verde in Northcote Road. She hadn't had any lunch, so sampled plenty of my organic extra virgin olive oil dipped in delicious Greek granary bread from the deli round the corner from my base at E.D. Warehouse. Duly impressed, she bought a bottle, and I bought some of her gorgeous patchouli soap - a blast from the seventies, that!

I was a bit stressed about all the markets I was attending, so when I woke up on Friday night with insomnia, I decided to take a shower with the soap and then read the Verde brochure in bed. What a treat! Gorgeous soaps, lotions, creams and potions for everything under the sun, described in the most alluring way. Brazilian lime and organic lavender sea salt scrub promised to be sublime to use, with fabulous results, leaving you with deliciously softer skin. Damascus rose body cream was soothing, toning, emotionally comforting and fabulously sensual. And then there was the High Anxiety Bath Milk and the Fragrant Warrior Reviving Bathsalts whose names alone made me feel better! After reading the brochure I could just visualise myself submerged in a pot of the whole lot and, duly comforted, soon fell into a peaceful and refreshing slumber.

My van had developed some problems, so on Saturday I decided to set the stall up really early and leave it under the watchful eye of my neighbour Paul the CD seller while I went to the garage. Paul sells great World Music and '70s reggae among other things, but he wasn't there so a kind friend watched my stall. At first, she didn't want to, but then she read a passage from the Bible which encouraged her to help a friend. Lucky for me! She did a top job, as one of the punters she chatted to came back later to get a rug for her son at university. And what did I say before about sales taking on themes? This weekend, two of my customers were mothers getting rugs for their sons, either at university or boarding school.

Sunday was interesting just because the North London people seemed quite different to some of us south Londoners. I had a crowd of them around my stall all day, and no one was too shy to look at the rugs and ask questions. I wish more people would do that - all too often the public seem afraid that looking at a rug will somehow oblige them to buy it - or they worry that they are inconveniencing me by asking me to unfold them. As I assured people on Sunday, I enjoy showing the rugs off - and if you're not going to buy one, it doesn't matter because the person behind will have seen it, too, and they might!

Found a fab route back to south London from Archway. Straight down Hornsey Lane, through Dartmouth Park, past Tufnell Park tube and along York Way to Kings Cross (10mins). From there over Blackfriars Bridge to the Old Kent Road and onwards! I was home in little over 35 minutes, and that was in my clapped out Ford Escort van!

Brrrr. I never realised how cold you can get sitting outdoors all day, until I started this rug-selling lark.

I began selling jarapas last October at the Sunday market in Greenwich. I was a full-time web editor during the week and, from my chilly market debut until Christmas, most weekday lunch breaks were spent shopping for warm clothes. First, I got a fleece from a mountaineering shop. Utter rubbish, as it turned out. So then I started on thermal vests. I got a nice black one from M&S - then another, and then another. Next, I got a matching pair of thermal longjohns. Eventually, I had it cracked. Three thermal vests, longjohns, two pairs of socks, a long-sleeve T-shirt and two fleeces seemed to be what was required to keep a body warm.

Then it got even colder. A colleague at work loaned me a massive blue duvet coat. It must have been the biggest duvet coat on the planet - but one freezing Sunday I put it on in desperation. My fellow traders fell about laughing. I must admit, I did feel a bit of a berk.

Fortunately, another trader sold me a slightly smaller duvet coat. A bit OTT, still, but good for emergencies. Like last Saturday at North Cross Road.

It was three degrees, with a windchill factor of -3. It started well enough - the vests, longjohns, fleece and woolly hat were doing a great job. But as soon as the stall was up, the chill set in. So it was on with the duvet coat and, eventually, an emergency third pair of socks as well. And it worked. I felt relatively toasty all day.

So far, so good. The only problem was that by the end of the day, I looked a bit like a monster. Hair disheveled under the hat (hat-hair!), padded out to a size 18, red-faced in the icy wind. It took three months to learn how to keep warm at the market, but I think it might take considerably longer to work out how to look good at the same time!

As any regular readers of this blog will know, the proprietor of Casa Jarapa is a keen community gardener in her spare time. And yesterday was a great day in community garden terms, because Richard Farr from Lewisham Council came to tell us that our street is going to get eight new trees!

We first asked for some new trees about 18 months ago, when a neighbour and I presented a 'tree wishes' list to the council's street trees department. Six months and no reply later, we thought our list must have fallen into a beaurocratic black hole. But early this summer news reached us that some of our wishes were to be granted. Then it all went quiet again, until Richard's visit yesterday.

Richard explained that the delay was due to the extensive cataloguing he's been doing since coming into post two years ago. He's now catalogued every single tree in the borough. Each one (about 8000 in total) is now listed and plotted on a computerised map. Any diseased or dangerous trees have been identified and removed - and now it's time to plant some more!

From now on, Richard's team will make sure that each tree - old and new - is carefully monitored and maintained with the aid of a computerised timetable. So, hopefully, ailing and neglected trees will soon be a thing of the past in Lewisham and our streets will be bushy and blooming like never before!

Today, both a landlady and a couple of tenants came rug-shopping.

The landlady said she couldn't currently afford a rug, because she hadn't as yet been able to let her flat. But this brought to mind one of my original customers, another landlady. After getting a rug for herself, she bought another to spruce up her rented-out flat. She wisely chose a hard-wearing, tightly-woven darkish red one. Clearly, dark red would not show too much dirt. As a bonus, the tighter weaves are particularly easy to wash. The rug was very cheerful, as was my customer when she came in later to tell me her flat had been snapped up the same day!

Later today, a young couple came in search of a rug to cover up the ghastly pink carpet in their newly-rented flat. They took some photos and went off to ponder over colours. They were impressed with the prices, and pleased to think that they could take the rug with them if they move - jarapa rugs are impressively hard-wearing and can last a lifetime. Of course, an alternative plan would be to ask their landlord if they could store the carpet and sand the floorboards. As a former landlady myself, I know I jumped at the chance when a tenant offered to do this for me! Jarapas look great anywhere, but I really do think they are at their ultimate best on top of sanded and polished floorboards.

Coming into work on the 185 today, the bus driver inexplicably shut off the engine at the Dulwich Plough. The packed top deck sat there quietly - this is London, after all, and while we might have wondered what was happening, no one was actually going to ask. After about two minutes, everyone got up at once and piled down the stairs - me with them. Was I going deaf? Had there been a security alert that I hadn't heard?

No... it turned out the reason for the upsurge was that another 185 had pulled in behind us. The passengers at the back had spotted it and decided to change buses. Rather than ask our driver what was going on, everyone else had followed. And then someone said: "Two minutes' silence!"

So that was why we'd stopped. And that was how a bus-load of button-lipped Londoners observed the respectful custom to honour servicemen who died in the world wars. But at the time, we didn't even realise!

The Obama feelgood factor seemed to merge into the world of jarapa-selling today, because it must have been one of our best midweek sales-days ever.

Strangely, sales seem to take on distinct themes. One week it's all small rugs, another it's all hall-runners. Well, today, joy of joys, it was all extra-large ones. First a charming man from Tipperary came in and got a couple, soon followed by Justine from the fabulous Mrs Crow's book concession next door to me at E.D. Warehouse, who bought another. In the afternoon another nice man bought another. That wasn't all, either. Perhaps the dark winter evenings bring on the urge for a nice rug to cosy up your home. Whatever, everyone seemed very pleased with their purchases.

The day got off to a good start in community gardening terms, too, when Oliver from Lewisham Council popped over with a free bird box. Our locality has been chosen to be Lewisham's first 'eco street', so the residents here qualify for a few little goodies to help us make the environment greener and cleaner. And, as you must know by now, my jarapa-rugs are very environmentally friendly as well, because they are made from recycled cotton.

Well, here we go with the tales of a first-time, one-woman rug-business with a sideline in community gardening. And how better to start than with a few thoughts on how community gardening can help to keep you sane when you're trapped in the jaws of a credit crunch.