sixty to sixty-four...

60: a supportive community to help with troublesome assignments

61: Monday night babysitting

62: no-one having been hurt at the next door shop's hold up yesterday morning

63: no "accidents" at school! yay!

64: children moved by books (R, Once, Morris Gleitzman)

forty to forty-seven...

40: a shop of our own and

41: a hard working husband who has earned

42: the loyalty of our regular customers

43: who understand the value of supporting small business

44: a bye weekend when you're team is untouchable on top of the ladder

45: the dogs being defeated

46: a house that possums visit

47: reheatable meals when the cat steals your chicken!

That one, right up the back...

Specs: Canon EOS 400D 1/200s f/1.8 50mm ISO 400

Specs: Canon EOS 400D 1/200s f/1.8 50mm ISO 400

Today was my first day at the shop, well, first trading day in any case! There was still a lot of cleaning and tidying to do so I got stuck into that whilst R very ably attended to our cash till and customers. Had a chance to talk with the "neighbours" and some of our customers so that was nice.

Look forward to another couple of days in the shop this week; tidying up our second shop on Sunday and the following week we'll have TWO trading locations!

Day One...

Our first trading day; we've had some stock issues, ie things ordered and not delivered so it's been a bit hard to have nice, full displays. We do however, have nice signs and fresh produce.

 The fridge with stock and signs! Eek - those stickers need to go, we don't stock that juice for starters...

The displays across the front of the shop; I think these need to move, I'm not liking this stock being in the window...

More display bins...

Today's photos courtesy of R on her first day as a "check-out chick".

Look What We Got...

We just took over the management of this shop; tomorrow is our first trading day so today R and I went with D to see the shop for the first time and give it a bit of a clean up.

 This is what the shop has looked like when closed for at least the last couple of years. Nice display isn't it? It's been changed; those display bins now face out of the shop when the shop is closed, a revolution in merchandising! (Or just common sense?) The stickers and signs from the windows have all been removed too, people can see in unimpeded.

 The shell of a shop; there is a lot of potential here. There has been no signage whatsoever in the fridges, infact, D told me there was 6 months worth of out of date dairy stock in the bottom of the fridge. Who does that?!

The price signs in the picture were put in place by D last week, there were none before that. Apparently there were also some dubious pricing practices in place. Look at all those walnuts (on the left of the shelf above the bins) so many walnuts! They were on sale from the wholesaler... so quick, buy up, don't worry about it you will sell them or not! Oh dear...

I love unusual little details like this. This mail delivery slot is in the bottom of the door, literally 10cm or so off the ground. I'd bet that really bugs the mail deliverer!

This was how we left the shop; display bind facing out, we didn't have any stock to put in place this afternoon. The bread crates were not ours to remove (unfortunately).

There is a lot of potential here; I want to put blackboard signs along the front of the display bins, that's a start.