What is an ‘oggie'? What's the symmetry between cold drinks and electrical goods? What do you buy at a stand advertising ‘other crap', and why does the ‘Food and Coffee' stand not sell coffee?

These are some of the fascinating unanswered conundrums thrown up by an early, aimless wander around the Bethlehem and Te Puna Lions Club market day.

Nurseryman Ralph Allen – down the road to the Historic Village.

It was the last market at Bethlehem Town Centre, because they've been told to ‘sling their hook'. So they're slinging a couple of Ks down State Highway 2 to the Historic Village.

Not welcome in the prudish, privileged Bible belt anymore, but apparently very, very welcome down off Cameron Road where they're trying to resuscitate the clinically dead Historic Village.

But back to Sunday's ‘swan-hym' at Bethlehem.

The stallholders were grumpy and not all of it sponsored by a 5am start to the day.

'There are a lot of p*ssed off people here,” I am told. Such feeling and such language on the Sabbath and within earshot of the local Baptists.

The traders have been told they've been moved on because the new owners of the Town Centre have development plans. 'It's their place, their patch – the stallholders are only visitors – so fair enough” says the Rawleigh's man.

'What are we moving for – more shops?” The woman waving a venison salami at me, a very good spicy one it needs to be said, has a point. 'More shops when there are empty ones?” Her outrage is only exceeded by her ability to sell me $20 worth of venison patties I don't need.

She is telling me about the unfairness of it all and I am handing her a 20. How does that work?

There's a woman selling stuff, bric-a-brac stuff. Before she's made her first sale she's hooking into an unfeasibly large choux pastry stuffed with whipped cream and 650 calories and it's only gone 8am. She gives me a 'mind your own business” chocolate smeared glare.

There are easy distractions here.

Like the Willie Nelson doppelganger. I wait for him to launch into 'Seven Spanish Angels” but no! And that old guy strangling the last life out a squeeze box. It's not music, it's agony.

Good scope for people watching here. Wonderful sights, smells and experiences to be had.

And where there are disgruntled traders and marching orders, you will hear gossip and speculation. And the ‘G&S' in this case is the site will become a K-Mart, a cinema, or even a Farmers in a few months.

'We could be right here doing good business for those few months. I will be watching and I don't want to see this site still vacant in a few months. Do you want onions with your sausage mate?” You get an immediate sense of the priorities here.

To understand the upset, you have to understand the business. The Bethlehem Town Market was a very good little earner for the 130 or so stall-holders and the Lions. The site provided easy access, lots of car parking, and lots of passing traffic. The lions made $150,000 dollars over six years of markets at Bethlehem.

That was pumped straight back into the community, like a flash new people mover for Women's Refuge.

Altruism aside, there are commercial realities 'The new owners paid a lot for the property and now they want to max it – s**t happens!” offers another more pragmatic trader. 'And it's exciting about where we are going.” That's what the Lions want to hear.

You could buy 10 corn cobs for $5 at the Bethlehem Market, when across the carpark at Countdown they're 99 cents each. Market price for a bunch of celery $2 and inside $4.40. I am told the supermarket produce section takes a hit on market day.

Last week I wandered through the market place on a non-market Sunday morning. Call it research.

It had that post thermal nuclear blast feel about it. Not a soul – deserted - apart from a few insomniacs doing the supermarket.

Without the Sunday Market, Bethlehem is slow to warm. It's hard picking the size of a crowd, but my friends from Bethlehem-Te Puna Lions say it was a good crowd for the last supper at Bethlehem – 'between two and three thousand perhaps”.

That's a lot of people, which raises another point. Why do the main centre shops steadfastly stay closed when the market delivers all this added custom first thing on a Sunday morning?

And therein, somewhere, lies the reason for the man on the food and coffee stand not being allowed to sell coffee – because the enterprising coffee shops in Bethlehem are open smartly.

It's also the reason the pie man can't sell pies because the bakery is open just round the corner. Restraint of trade at the Sunday markets – who would have thought?

By the way, that ‘oggie' – it's a pastie – of proportions to keep a Cornish coalminer fuelled for an eight hour shift. So this one should at least see me through to morning tea.

Sunday markets give you a licence to eat the most inappropriate food at particularly inappropriate times of the day. For example the ‘churro' team is churning out churros at a clip and it's just gone 9am.

I wanted to talk more to the Rawleigh's man about the big move down to the Historic Village but he was pre-occupied with asthma, bronchitis, and croup and he almost sold me enough antiseptic salve to last me five years. Salve? Coffee? Salve? Coffee? – no choice mate.

This is not about buying, not about bargains, it's about entertainment.

So erase Bethlehem from your mind and head down to the new manger at the Historic Village on March 15. 130 traders, like all of us, struggle with change. But this change won't be a bad thing. I'll come - so their new customer base is at least one.