December 7th and Coffee, Chat and (Optional) Craft!

An Invitation, to thank all Home Start Volunteers, even those like me who've only been volunteering in the new Stowmarket shop for a few weeks.

Refreshments turned out to be a delicious mini buffet and the (Optional) Craft was to make these pretty Christmas decorations with ribbon and beads.(In case you are not sure, due to my ham-fisted attempts............they are meant to represent Christmas trees!)

 I made the green one first but decided it would be a bit heavy for the Christmas tree so made the smaller one for the tree and the big one will go on the window......catching the light.

Might start collecting beads to make some next year, have plenty of ribbon already. The lady who taught us buys up bead necklaces from charity shops and uses those. She also told me about a charity shop called The Big C that has craft classes in Diss, she said it's beside the Original Factory Shop and Poundstretcher, I didn't even know there was a  Factory Shop and Poundstretcher in Diss! but apparently its on a small trading estate just on the edge of town. Sounds as if it's worth a look........ ASAP.

Many thanks for comments yesterday, sorry about the bit that sounded moany and pathetic. I am really pleased with the kitchen, it is so well finished and will still be fixed to the walls when, as Elaine said, archaeologists find it in 2000 years time!  

Back Tomorrow

Sue

It's Saturday Again

I have no idea how the weeks fly by so quickly but they do.

Winter suddenly arrived on Tuesday when the windchill factor brought the temperatures down to near freezing all day. Although there actually hasn't been a frost here yet, unlike other parts of the country.The leaves had all come down at once over the weekend, the roads are caked with mud from the tractors and lorries doing the sugar beet and everywhere is suddenly looking very dismal.

Swimming was nice and quiet, only 7 people in for most of the time I was swimming. Six months ago I could just about do 8 x 20m lengths, two weeks ago I managed 20 lengths and this week I did  26 x 20m, with only a couple of pauses. On the way there a Barn Owl flew towards and then across the road in front of me which reminded me to look for any signs of one roosting in the wood shed this year, but nothing...........sadly.

 It's the food storage and  the baking equipment cupboards in the kitchen being replaced next week, so a big job of emptying everything onto the dining room table. I seem to have a good lot of food in tins, nothing too out of date except a tin of cheap custard BBE  Aug 2016, which I ate with a banana for two days, it was fine.

Did my stint at the charity shop, the books were in a right old muddle as I hadn't been there the week before. So my job was to tidy them all back into alphabetical order and bring more down. There is one problem with this shop - it's very old and only the shop is on the ground floor . Everything else is up steep winding stairs - 3 more floors! So when people bring in donations it all has to go up and then sorted and back down again. The lady who is the manager says she loses two pound in weight every week, but then puts it back on at the weekend. I can see this might be a problem if they get any very elderly volunteers, they'll never make it up and down....I struggle and I'm fairly fit - ish!

Interesting things learned this week
1. We might be getting an Aldi  in Stowmarket. There was one in town many years ago before the brand really took off but they closed down. The building then became a Poundland but blow-me-down that closed down too.............just before we moved back this way. If Aldi returns it will be in a different building  just out of town but within walking distance and closer to the centre than Lidl is. There isn't much parking at the proposed site so it might get turned down by the council as it involves change of use from offices to retail. I'll keep you updated!
2. The Wyevale Garden Centre in Woodbridge has turned into a Dobbies. Wonder if they all have.

Here's a teaser from somewhere I went this week. More photos will appear in my Advent 2018 posts during December (or before if I run out of ideas for the rest of this month!)

Welcome to new followers, hope you enjoy reading.

Have a lovely weekend, enjoy whatever you do despite the weather forecast, which is a bit dreary.

Back Monday
Sue

Maybe Volunteering.................

.........................in a charity shop, might not be such a good idea.

I did my first session of volunteering in a brand new charity shop and ended up coming home with a pack of swimming nappy pants for whichever grandchild they'll fit. A  hat to replace one I lost somewhere, a nice big shopping bag and a book called " Year Round Things to Do". Which is a new version of an old book I had when I ran the Cub Scouts. It's full of ideas for crafts and other bits and bobs for children to do each month.

We get 20% off the labelled price so I paid £4.80.

The charity is called Home Start and after they lost County Council funding the local group opened a small charity shop in Eye earlier this year and now this new shop which is slap bang in the middle of Stowmarket.
I had volunteered to make some sense out of their books which had more-or-less just been shoved on the  shelves any old how. I found I hadn't forgot how to quickly get the fiction in alphabetical order and the non-fiction into subjects, despite not working  in libraries since 1980. I made a list of what labels they needed for the shelf edges too.
At the moment the store and stock rooms are in one-heck of a muddle, people are bringing in stuff by the bagful every day and there are nowhere enough volunteers yet. The one paid lady-in-charge is only supposed to do 30 hours but in the first two weeks she's done 50 hours each week! I was there for 4 hours and the shop was amazingly busy. I'm not sure about learning to work the till yet so I'll be back room for the time being.
Stowmarket already had 8 charity shops, this one makes 9 and there's a shop being fitted out as we speak for an RSPCA charity shop - is there enough STUFF in the houses of Stow for 10 charity shops? By the look of it - yes. There have been moans about the number of charity shops in the past but it's better than them standing empty and now there are no small shops empty in the town centre at all.

Back Tomorrow
Sue