Tuesday 20th November

Gosh here we are three weeks into November already! I don't know why I should be so suprised, I feel like my new best friends are the staff at my local post office, I've been up there so often. I made a huge mistake of going to the central post office in Bristol the other day, and boy, was that stupid.

They've just spent ages tarting the place up, and when I was in there, they've got some daft new system for queuing. Instead of having a nice, clearly defined space for queueing in, you take a ticket - yep, just like the line at the deli counter in the supermarkets. Works well there doesn't it? Not in the Galleries it doesn't. The space where people would line up, and wait, nicely, probably moaning, but at least having a rough idea of how long they'd have to wait, and where they were in the queue, is full of posh chairs and irritating interruptions in the space. So you can't actually queue, you stand in the mob, with people getting angrier and angrier, because they've no idea how many people there are in front of them, how long it'll take - absolutely hopeless. I spoke to the manager, who told me this was the bright idea of their re-design people, and I am going to send an email to the customer service department, but it won't do any good. I've stopped going there. I'm lucky in that I've got a local sub post office I can get to, with a nice defined queueing space and polite people to fill it. At least I'm reasonably sure I won't get decked simply trying to get out my parcels.

Anyhow things have been flying out of my Ebay shop. I've got a special deal on postage - spend over £10.00 and you get everything sent to you free! But if you only want a couple of items, then you still get your discount - first item at £1.50, and everything else at just 0.25p.

Check out some of my Xmas items!

A pink and plum Bagcharm - starts on the 27th November, and at just £3.00!

This is a dinkly little fat bagcharm - all pink crackleglass beads and pink flower beads. Starts on the 26th November, again at £3.00.

These are some of my small bookmarks. There's lots of choice, all between £2.50 - £4.00 for the small one's, with lots on buy it now, so you don't have to wait for the end of the auction!

This is one of the bigger bookmarks. They're on auction -

mostly starting at about £5.99, with a 6 inch squiggle crook!

1st November 2007

I have just discovered exactly how far civilisation has fallen. I have seen the evidence in front of my own eyes.

I went to Sainsbury's, the way you do, after posting a few packets - I needed bread, that sort of thing, and I was in no rush so I dawdled around looking at the Xmas stuff. On the end of one rack of shelves were some children's toys - dolls, plastic figures, and among this, a rather battered box containing a doll. A doll done up as some sort of fairytale figure. Across the top of this was a tag line - advertising blurb, I suppose, though what it's called properly I have no idea. It's the sort of thing that people in advertising agencies must have conferences about, and I'm betting that this one came up as the topic at the end of a very long session.  The doll, I'm reasonably sure, was a Disney, so perhaps that may explain it, but nevertheless, this doll - a Sleeping Beauty, although in a way this makes this even more mystifying - was described as "Royal Elegance and..."  now what would you think Sleeping Beauty would be? In this day and age?  Royal Elegance and a presence at the Bar..? Royal Elegance and Empathy over the X ray machine?  Royal Elegance and her gold medal Flower Arranging Certificate???

No. Oh no you'd be way way wrong. No this Sleeping Beauty was Royal Elegance and..  Kung Fu Action.   Royal Elegance and Kung Fu Action.  I don't know whether to laugh or cry...