Monday, June 21, 2010
A positive slant.
It has been a good day with a very positive feel to it.
My first thoughts were "oh dear". I switched off the alarm and immediately wondered where our safe was. Surely not!
But no, Jonathan had been in and moved it to a better place.
Jonathan is full of ideas about to improve the shop.
Strangely as I mulled all this over with Monika I realised that much Bill and I had thought of has been in the minds of many others too.
There will be improvements, if we all put in some extra time.
We have all thought that strip lighting would be more efficient and ultimately less expensive than the many bulbs being used for lighting at the moment.
And we have all thought that some storage heaters would help to keep the chill off the shop in Winter and draught excluder round the doors is a must.
The passageway, which is horrible, and named The Pilgrims Way would be closed off. It is a wind tunnel.
There will be a weekend in July when people will gather at the shop on a Saturday evening and then the Sunday to make a start. Some people might wield paint brushes to freshen up the walls.
I spent time this morning writing up some of the things I bought over the weekend and finding places for them.
I removed a shelf of books.
They are not selling at all well - all books about Surrey, so they are not paying their way.
Bill also cleared out some books from his area.
We already had a bag full of books that I rejected whilst doing my stock check.
It was hard work taking two heavy bags down to the Oxfam book shop.
That's about the only charity shop that are happy to deal with interesting non fiction books.
Finally we had some time for lunch.
Bill had his, sitting outside the back of the shop and watched as parent blackbirds flew back and forth to a nest in some climbing evergreen on a trellis - not very secluded.
He took my camera over and photographed the nest.
This would be a second brood for the blackbirds - just like the pair who are nesting in Frieda's back garden.
I am not sure about this brood - one of them seems very much bigger and stronger than the others.
Perhaps he is getting all the juicy bits that his parents bring home.
If he is an intruder he would be a cuckoo - and I cannot believe that, not within the town.
We got busy during the afternoon and took quite a bit of money for people.
I was very pleased to sell a Clarice Cliffe bowl for Mick, who joined us recently. He had not been selling very well so far.
He was pleased too when I phoned him!
Bill and I had minor sales today.
And here is Monika modelling one of my sales.
She went out and bought carrot cake for us all and brought us down cups of tea.
I had asked her to put the pinafore on, so that I could photograph it for the blog. Tomorrow there will be photos of new stock I have spotted round the shop on the shop blog.
But the pinafore will not be for sale - Monika has bought it!
She says she does wear aprons in the kitchen and commented "How sad am I? I now have a best pinny!"
We had thought of eating at Wetherspoons after the shop closed.
But we were late getting away and even later getting out of Dorking because the main road south was closed due to an accident.
Fortunately we know other routes and so were not delayed as much as some.
I decided to get home, because I had things finishing on EBay.
Tomorrow we have a number of chores to do and will catch up on some relaxing.
One of my chores is a blood test - my turn this week for a medical appointment. This will be the 3rd time an attempt has been made to to do this test to check how my parathyroid glands are doing and the levels of calcium and vitamin D.
The path labs seem to be getting something wrong. The sample should be frozen fairly promptly and if the person taking the blood doesn't know that, I fear it might not be done. Do I dare tell them how to do their jobs?
My first thoughts were "oh dear". I switched off the alarm and immediately wondered where our safe was. Surely not!
But no, Jonathan had been in and moved it to a better place.
Jonathan is full of ideas about to improve the shop.
Strangely as I mulled all this over with Monika I realised that much Bill and I had thought of has been in the minds of many others too.
There will be improvements, if we all put in some extra time.
We have all thought that strip lighting would be more efficient and ultimately less expensive than the many bulbs being used for lighting at the moment.
And we have all thought that some storage heaters would help to keep the chill off the shop in Winter and draught excluder round the doors is a must.
The passageway, which is horrible, and named The Pilgrims Way would be closed off. It is a wind tunnel.
There will be a weekend in July when people will gather at the shop on a Saturday evening and then the Sunday to make a start. Some people might wield paint brushes to freshen up the walls.
I spent time this morning writing up some of the things I bought over the weekend and finding places for them.
I removed a shelf of books.
They are not selling at all well - all books about Surrey, so they are not paying their way.
Bill also cleared out some books from his area.
We already had a bag full of books that I rejected whilst doing my stock check.
It was hard work taking two heavy bags down to the Oxfam book shop.
That's about the only charity shop that are happy to deal with interesting non fiction books.
Finally we had some time for lunch.
Bill had his, sitting outside the back of the shop and watched as parent blackbirds flew back and forth to a nest in some climbing evergreen on a trellis - not very secluded.
He took my camera over and photographed the nest.
This would be a second brood for the blackbirds - just like the pair who are nesting in Frieda's back garden.
I am not sure about this brood - one of them seems very much bigger and stronger than the others.
Perhaps he is getting all the juicy bits that his parents bring home.
If he is an intruder he would be a cuckoo - and I cannot believe that, not within the town.
We got busy during the afternoon and took quite a bit of money for people.
I was very pleased to sell a Clarice Cliffe bowl for Mick, who joined us recently. He had not been selling very well so far.
He was pleased too when I phoned him!
Bill and I had minor sales today.
And here is Monika modelling one of my sales.
She went out and bought carrot cake for us all and brought us down cups of tea.
I had asked her to put the pinafore on, so that I could photograph it for the blog. Tomorrow there will be photos of new stock I have spotted round the shop on the shop blog.
But the pinafore will not be for sale - Monika has bought it!
She says she does wear aprons in the kitchen and commented "How sad am I? I now have a best pinny!"
We had thought of eating at Wetherspoons after the shop closed.
But we were late getting away and even later getting out of Dorking because the main road south was closed due to an accident.
Fortunately we know other routes and so were not delayed as much as some.
I decided to get home, because I had things finishing on EBay.
Tomorrow we have a number of chores to do and will catch up on some relaxing.
One of my chores is a blood test - my turn this week for a medical appointment. This will be the 3rd time an attempt has been made to to do this test to check how my parathyroid glands are doing and the levels of calcium and vitamin D.
The path labs seem to be getting something wrong. The sample should be frozen fairly promptly and if the person taking the blood doesn't know that, I fear it might not be done. Do I dare tell them how to do their jobs?
Labels: shop and stock
