Charity Shop

There is something I love about working in a charity shop.

Strange people.

Now, let me start the post properly.

I'm sorry I haven't posted on any days I'm supposed to post, I think I'll start getting back to it soon. You see, the whole routine of life has been turned upside down because of the holidays.

Saturday was one of life's busy days. Dad was out somewhere doing some plumbing for someone, Mum was trying to get the house really tidy with the help of the few kids who weren't with Dad, and I was quite happy to escape to the charity shop.

At least, I was until I got there.

Don't get me wrong here, I absolutely love all of the ladies who work there. I wish I could say the same about the customers.

Some of the customers are alright, the deaf lady who comes in is lovely - and I really like doing the translating for her. She's one of life's nice people. And there are a few 'regulars' who always have a smile for us, and a chat about woolworths closing down or the latest dog dying etc.

Then we move on.

"I've got a baby cot here, it's brand new. Here you are"

"I'm really, really sorry. Due to law and the fact that it may break when somebody buys it, and we could get sued, we're not allowed to take it" (I thought that was kind.)

"I would have thought even a "charity shop" would be less fussy" SLLLLLAAAAAAAMMMMMM goes the door in my face.

"Here is a bag, all full of my daughters clothes. There is some nice stuff in there"

"Thank you!" I say and smile. It's the falsest smile you've ever seen.

Ten minutes later:

"Constance!!! Who gave you that bag?? The woman put clothes on the top, and old sausage rolls, rubbish, old paper, pencils, milk cartons underneath"

"I knew she was a bad 'un" I say

"Constance! Come out here and get this off the top shelf for this young man"

(The young man is every day of fifty, but I guess that's young to them)

I come out of the back room, one pen in my hand, one behind my ear, and another clipped to my t-shirt (You NEED pens in a charity shop)

"Which man, Edna?"

There is only one man there. I come up to his elbow.

"Which one?" I smile cheerfully. He points silently to a flowery lampshade.

I get onto my tiptoes, pull it down and hand it to him.

He looks at it; looks at the price tag 1.75

"Too much" he shakes his head, and I put it back up.

Very, very, very, strange.

I whistle quietly as I waltz into the 'library' - the little room where there are books, videos, dvds and folders.

A very small man in a tight leather jacket (I HATE those things) jumps when he sees my arms full of videos, and my t-shirt with a couple of pens clipped on, and rushes past me. The videos go flying.

I watch him go, eyes narrowed, kneel down, pick the videos up, put them and way and turn round to pick up the dvd cases.

One after the other, after the other; empty. All empty.

There is something rather depressing about people who steal from a charity shop. I take the empty cases and put them in the bin, complete with the price tags I only put on 30 minutes ago.

I'm scowling now as I walk through to the clothing part of the shop, and come across an old lady, every day of seventy trying a pink sequiny jacket (age 13-14) on.

"What do you think??"

I flash her a grin and nod (You see, this is how to do it. I didn't lie did I?) and move on very, very quickly.

So quickly I collide straight into a huge big guy in ANOTHER leather jacket. He looked so scary I quickly felt my pockets to see if everything was still there. I've heard stories about people who bump into you, you see!

"Scuse me miss" I turn round to see a boy, probably about 11 years old.

I'm instantly flattered at being called Miss, and smile at him very nicely :) "Do you have any Play Station2 games in?"

I spend the next ten minutes going through our collection of Play Station 2 games with him

"Got that one"
"Got that one"

"Got that one"

I think you 'got the picture'!?

"We don't have any more" I say at the end of it all.

"That's okay" he says, and puts his hand into his pocket, brings out a half eaten lolipop and proceeds to eat it.

He's barely out of sight when a little girl comes running at top speed toward me, just about to crash into me. I decide to catch her.

"Watch it darling" I tell her "You're gonna get hurt one of these days"

She takes no notice, being of that age, you see, and grabs at a pin on my lapel.

"Sweetie?" she says

Actually, no, that is a 'Support Our Troops' badge.

Let's not start on that one, I'm too tired to argue about how much I don't support the war, but I do support the troops that are out there for as long as they are out there.

The mum of the little girl finally turns up, pushing a huge big double buggy.

"Schelonade come here" Well, that's how it sounded!

Maybe the child was named after the woman in Arabian Nights, however her name is spelt or pronounced

Mary comes walking into the back room, and says "I don't know about those people out there! That man and woman, letting their little girl run round awfully, while they're stealing. Constance dear, do you have the air-freshner?"

Mary is one of life's really nice people.

Whereas, the father of that little girl, turned out to one of life's horrible people.He managed to get away with some really expensive dolls under his coat.

You know what? I think this post is long enough, and my computer is messing up completely (You can probably see it, with the horrible spacing between my lines, it's driving me crazy!) so I think I'll disappear and sort it out!

Have a good week, whatever you're doing

Constxxx

P.S. Talking of Mary, she's quite ill at the moment, and is undergoing tests at Kings College hospital. Prayers would be appreciated.

Miscellaneous

Hello again,

I'm sorry I didn't keep up with my idea to put a post on every Thursday as well as Tuesday, but I'm kinda tied for time on Thursdays, so here's one on Monday.

How are things?

Well, I'm extremely busy with lessons, and have a horrible bump at the back of my head, that I can't complain about because it's entirely my fault(!)

You see, on Saturday, I was playing Doctors and Nurses game with some little children (and I used to HATE that game when I was little), and one of the things, I, as the patient, had to do was act ill. (believably, of course)

So, I kept collapsing onto the bed in either the room where the Doctor was, or the in the 'chemists'.

It all went perfectly well in the Dr's room, but when I collapsed in the 'chemist's' room, I smashed the back of my head.

Well? What could I do? I was already lying there going "Ouch, don't! DON'T TOUCH ME!!!! AHHHH! Ouch, me head hurts"

I could hardly have stood up and gone. "Er, do you mind? My head REALLY hurts now!?"

I just carried on, heroically smiling as they tried to bandage up my head (why couldn't I have said I had armache?)

Next time I'm going to have a good look before I go flying down backwards on a bed, pretending to be ill, and I'm sure that there are worse things in life than what I'm complaining about.

Of course, as for many other things in life, when I announced that I was now fine, and wasn't going to 'be ill' for the sixth time, all of the little girls scarpered, leaving just three of us to pick up six thousand tissues, forty little bits of sticky tape (yep, I'm sure they REALLY enjoyed taping my mouth up so I couldn't speak) - a billion bits of cotton wool, and five hundred bandages.

Er, yes, I'm sure you're aware that was a shameful exaggeration, and whatever I'm saying, the game was quite fun actually :-)

Let's move on...

Don't you just love the saying 'Y'Alright'?

You can say it to anyone: an old lady who thinks you're being concerned about the fall she took three years ago.

A kid, who thinks that you're wondering if they need any more ice-cream.

Someone your own age, who, correctly, takes it as a greeting.

A business collegue, who thinks that you are thinking 'Did she have a good journey'.

A self-defence teacher, who thinks that you're wondering if he's been in any fights recently, and finally, your close family, who are so used to it, that they just ignore it.

Yes, a VERY useful couple of words, I must admit.

However. I just was thinking. Supposing it was a very independant old lady, and she doesn't like people asking her if she is alright. Or if you are speaking to a kid who's seriously ill, and his/her mother takes offence, or your business collegue has just been released from a mental asylum and goes into fits of worries over whether you know about it... and so on.

Maybe you should just stick to Hello. You can't go wrong much there, can you?

Moving on again.

Don't you just hate the fact that we English are stereotyped as people with bowler hats, who trot around, Scarlet Pimpernel type walking sticks in our hands, calling all our friends Old boy, or Old girl, with a horrible, horrible accent and very strange words. Such as "Jolly good show!" or "Cherrio Old Fellow"

If you were to ask me, the proper stereotype English person, is:

Under 18, someone with a tracksuit, airmax clumpy trainers, a face far more brown than is natural (I mean fake tan or layers of foundation; not non-white genes, don't get me wrong, puhlease) and a very cool phone blasting Kanye West in the ears of people who don't want to listen.

Over 18, they have suits, a glazed look on their face, are reading Tom Grisham, and listening to something from the sixties in their ipods. [Should I add - and travelling to work, all at the same time]

Over sixty, they are comparing bus passes, and shaking their heads over the state of children these days, and nattering on about what hairdresser to use.

I've never, ever, heard anyone in public, in England say "Jolly Good Show" have you?

On Buses, there is almost the 'war of music'

Under 18 turns his music up loud, to outdo Other Under 18 who is blasting 'not his style'

Over 18 turns her ipod up and determinedly stares out the window.

Other Over 18 turns his ipod up even louder and even more determinedly stares out the window.

Over sixty takes her hearing aid out.

Other over sixty takes his hearing aid out and takes off his glasses.

Turnbull puts hands over ears, and pretends she's elsewhere.
And of course, for anyone in the bus who puts a t into water (as in Wa'er, and waTer) there is the job of completely pretending that absolutely nothing is happening.

(Even though old deaf ladies from the houses thirty metres from the bus are leaning out of their windows and screaming "Turn it down!")

You can just tell I'm going to be on the bus this evening can't you?

Talking of actually being on the bus, poor me is going to Self Defence.

On Thurdsay is the grading, and I'm just going to stand behind my older brother, and hopefully not get noticed.

Oh, yeah! Which brings me to mention that we won 'family of the Year' for our class. The plate is sitting in our "Sabbath Room" with our names proudly displayed on it.

I caught Jeremy giving me this very strange look, that quite plainly said - "How comes your name is on it too when you haven't even tried"

What? I turned up, didn't I? And provided the amusement, right?

I learned early in life, you don't ever argue with someone who BELIEVES they are right, so I'll just leave it there.

Well, you know what? It's time I started getting a move on. I've still got to resurrect Mum's old camera and start using it more often, or I could just start using my phone?

Cya

Constxxx

I Can't Laugh! (among other things)

And it's true. I can't. (Don't laugh, that's not fair)

Due to a very bad cold, etc, etc, etc, I won't go into it all, and very bad coughing, sore stomach muscles; to laugh at the moment is infinitely painful.

Not to laugh, however, is even worse.

I couldn't laugh in the queue in Morrisons today when two old people behind me were making smart remarks about how the young should give up their spaces.

I couldn't laugh when recounting a very funny story to my siblings about a guy who gatecrashed the meeting on Sunday. (At least they all thought it was funny, when the incident occured, I was particuarly aware of being the only person in the building in a state of amusment. Not a recommended position, believe me!)

I couldn't laugh when Jeremy made a very funny joke, or when I tripped and nearly fell down the stairs on top of Sebastian, or any other funny time today (or yesterday) at all.

In short, I'm feeling somewhat sorry for myself, and I am, for once, complaining. Before you look horrified, let me remind you that this is far more like an historic occasion to be treasured.

It's probably quite obvious that I don't have anything particuarly clever to say in this blogpost, it's just a quick up to date thingie, er, post, on our [my] health, and what's happening at the moment.

I'll just go online to BBC news and see if anything interesting is happening worth of note at the moment.

And, I'm back! What is the world coming to?? There is a musical about Shane Warne!??!! Yes, I know what you're thinking, Shane Ward? A musical about him? How cool. But, no, I'm not talking about the singer, I'm talking about the Australian Cricket Bowler.

Actually, there is a preview.

"Do you really think he's got the mustard to take on the motherland?" I know Americans all think that we spend our lives going "Jolly Good Show! Tally Ho!" or "Tip top old sport" in some ridiculously old fashioned accent, but, er, we don't. I haven't heard about 'mustard' before though...?

And also online there is a 'first ever computer mouse demo' The man seems somewhat surprised that when you move the mouse, something moves on the screen!!!

look - - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7772376.stm
Amazing!

Those of us born in the the technical age, laugh with me. (or for me, rather!)

What is making me a little worried, though, is this thought: When people were experimenting with computer mice [or mouses?], my own father was already 8 years old!!!!

What else now...?

Ah yes, some photographs to lighten up your day.These two men will one day both be rulers of two brilliant countries (one already is)

Now, looking at their photographs before they are airbrushed, do you trust them?? I don't!



Well, that's all from me for now, no flames about the photos please :D



Love

Constxx

Did You Knows - To Give November a Send Off!

Did you Knows for the Month November.


I know that it's two days into December. I'll deal with that in another post!

Anyway. Did you know....
- I have a sister - who will remain unnamed for the time being - who slept down at the 'wrong' end of her bed one night and told me

"It is because the wind is in the west"

Strange!

- I have a little brother - also unnamed - who, when it is his naptime, collects all his little belongings in a box (his blankets, pillow etc) and trots into Mum's study where he sleeps, tugging the box along!

Cute!

- Three of us children, argue over who should be called the greatest Genius. (We're joking of course, before you start flaming us!)

Competitive! - I'll stop this now

- Joseph and Henry both have a birthday in November, and are five days apart. For five days they were nine this year. This is, interestingly enough, called being Irish Twins. It occurs because Henry was born five days before Joseph turned one.

- I'm walking upstairs one night, and I hear Julius shouting something at the top of his voice. It sounds like.."I am NOT AN AMERICAN!" (??!?!)

Julius, I hate to break your bubble....!

- As I progressed on my journey upstairs, I heard the following astonishing conversation

"Why did you scream?"

"I..I...I - uh?"

"I thought you were on fire!"

- I finally learned the meaning of the longest word in the world today. And would you believe it? No you wouldn't! It is something to do with the church that our old one broke away from - broke away from - broke away from - broke away from. Get the picture? Even I'm confused. (Btw, for those of you who didn't know, the longest world is antidisestablishmentarianism)

Who can see the Presbyterianism in there?

- You should ignore the above comment

- Last Did You Know of the evening..... Did you know that it's later than I intended to be up now, so I'm going to be signing off.

I've faithfully fulfilled my duty and posted on a Tuesday!!!

Bye!

Constxxx