A rainmac will not save you

It came with a storm, a raging storm many are saying a storm like they have never seen before, felt before or feared before. A storm that raged the sky’s, the world seemed to grow grey, trees were bowing nearly in half, cars were stranded and all hell broke loose, the heavens opened and the water fell. Enough to flood this town. It was just before closing as we let an elderly lady find refuge in the doorway, as it passed we stood and watched in disbelief as torrential rain came pouring through the top of the fire exit, small stones of hail falling like a cascading waterfall.

Then underneath like a river until a huge puddle formed in the backroom of the shop, water came pouring out from the top of the door. We threw down bags to try and soak up the damage, but it wasn’t doing much good there was just too much water. I opened the fire exit and it was like a small river rapids at Alton towers (I love it there, Halloween is the best time to go, it won’t be long before we pop a pumpkin in our front window will it!) guzzling down the alley way.

Anyway the drains couldn’t take it, the pumps couldn’t distribute the water quick enough and lightning struck peoples trees I found out afterwards, some completely in half, the council will not remove an act of god therefore it is left at the expense of the resident. One victim was one of our own volunteers. 

The scene from a neighbouring shop

The whole town began to flood, many shops suffered severe damage we were quite lucky as some were completely flooded through their lighting and roof. Thankfully ours is a relatively new building so a bit more modern and hardy. Although some of our winter stock and carpeting was damaged in the flood, we had to use heaters and fans to dry it all out. Anyway I hope we don’t have a repeat performance as the town may start resembling the lost city of Atlantis!

I ponder too long I may catch a fish. Or a white Rabbit.

White Rabbit I’m not even going to bother looking up this one I want to live in ponder, but why do they say “White Rabbit” on the first of each month? It’s apparently bad luck to speak before saying this phrase.

It’s the first day of August today, this year is going too blooming fast and I choose the word blooming as I haven’t even had chance to buy any plants yet, I have one lone lavender plant, some mint on my window and a small primitive pepper plant, I bought it for 50p from a gala because I won a St Michael vase, the irony of it all is it’s something I would donate to our charity shop because I’d have no use for it but everything has a story you know, and many objects and clothes have stories and if you are to stop and think for a while what journey it has taken to get to where you are now...

If objects had a soul, a memory and a heart then we would think twice before donating or worse throwing it away. It’s surprising what people throw away, and it’s some young people who don’t understand that their clothes they have had hardly worn would be better suited in one of our shops than the landfill sites. Also lately I’m getting a little annoyed with these shops that let you take a bag of clothes in and give you a small token (pittance), its taking directly from charity shops, people are selling everything these days and I worry one day there won’t be charity shops because the world will turn greedy and consume itself! There I said it, its sacrilege. Please donate to charities they need you.

Next time you donate an item to a charity shop think about it, where it’s come from and where it’s going to go you may be surprised what you remember!

custard, bag pipes and money

Strangest things we have had donated: 

·       A tin of custard

·       A fur coat made out of squirrels (with the heads and tails still attached)

·       Ornaments from Amsterdam full of whisky (see earlier blogs)

·       A cabinet full of cat hair and rabbit droppings

·       Homemade CD albums

·       Empty cardboard boxes

·       200 year old bibles

·       Out of date pack of ginger nuts

·       Underwear (from people you would not expect)

·       Exasperatingly large clothes

·       DVD’s with the adult movies still in the machine drawer (apparently Japanese “actors”)

·       Bag pipes

·       Guns with bullets (mainly decorative) in primark carrier bags

·       Swords (blunt)

·       Bags of rubbish quite literally

·       Adult toys

·       Leather jackets with various random items still in the pockets

·       Lipsticks with the head bitten off

·       Foreign money

Most (if not all!) cannot be sold in the shops and must either be disposed or sent to the authorities but does supply us with endless entertainment. Thank you all for your donations.

To be continued…..