Tuesday, July 01, 2008
01 July Now we are pilgrims.
Last night I began with a "phew" - and I say it once again this evening.
Here I stand proudly by our creation.
This time it has been me putting in the physical effort and the tennis players at Wimbledon have mostly managed to get on without me.
Today has been moving day.
We moved into Pilgrims.
I think Jo and Bill and I managed to create mayhem and chaos to disturb the normal peace and calm!
Jo had to empty the cabinets and get things towards the back of the shop before we could get started.
She had been a bit delayed because Stephen had decided to paint the walls in her new area.
Bill slotted in the little shelf unit we had bought in Ikea last week and I put out a few things and then we decided it was time for lunch and a sit down.
The little cafe in the shop has closed. It is hoped that perhaps somebody might take on the running of it.
Meanwhile we have the chairs and tables and the little garden out the back to enjoy.
The kitchen is well equipped with cafe needs - a fridge, a couple of microwaves etc.
I wandered off to Sainsbury's and bought a little stuff, then made a cup of tea back in the shop. It will be good to be able to pop out to the town when we are in Dorking.
We talked a lot with Stephen who organises the shop for us all. He sells old telephones, gramophones etc. He also makes money from furniture restoration.
We also talked with Judy, on duty today with Stephen. She is very kindly but a bit headmistressy and sits at the desk like the Pilgrims matriarch. There are always 2 people on duty.
Both Stephen and Judy expressed delight at how our cabinets looked. I am glad both were pleased because I wondered how Judy felt about noisy Jo and me taking over the place today and seemingly knowing what we were doing.
After our lunch we really set to work. It was hard with 2 of us bending over to get things out of boxes in a confined space. "Whoops a daisy" we laughed, as bottoms nudged each other!
Now I will show you some pictures of what we have done. If you want a better view of our wares then click on the photos to enlarge.
This shows our little space. There are 2 cabinets with locks and the shelf in between. Bill will keep his cabinet locked because there are a lot of small things in there. I shall leave mine unlocked.
This picture shows some of the 1950's things (well more or less that date) and my more juvenile items.
This is Bill's cabinet. He has farm things on the top shelf, soldiers etc on the next shelf and model cars below that.
And on the top of the cabinet he has the cameras and binoculars etc.
Here I stand proudly by our creation.
This last one shows our cabinets of course. You can see the window to the right and a lovely display of glass this week.
Under the window you can see a hotchpotch of plugs and wires - the electrics seem to be little different to Rocking Horse!
Our 2 cabinets have a light at the top and Bill has added a light to shine on the lower shelves of his cabinet.
I benefit from about 3 lights which actually shine on the things next to my cabinets, but also spotlight my things.
There is also a little cupboard under the window with all the cabinet keys.
We are back there again on Thursday for our first duty day. I guess normally I will go on my own but it would be good for Bill to know the routines of the shop too.
Of course we will need to go over between duties to see what has been sold (hopefully) and to collect our money (hopefully). This is not the best time to start a new venture because trade is always slack in the summer.
But lots of people were in and out today.
