Open Again

Once again I'm on a day off after three days at work. Another busy and intense week, but at least this week we finally managed to open the shop to the public again. Firstly, we had a 'donations only' day, so that people could bring in their donations and we could facilitate proper social distancing. This happened on Wednesday, and it went pretty well. We filled two whole cages with donations by the end of the day, which will now be quarantined for 48 hours before we sort them. By using the cages, we didn't have to handle the bags at all, as donors could just place them in the cage, which minimises risks for staff and volunteers alike. On Thursday, we finally opened to the public for them to shop. There was a bit of a flurry when people realised we were open again and then it was quiet on and off, with a few more flurries through the day. The takings were better than I thought they were going to be, but nothing like pre-Covid. A positive start though. Some shops have fared even better than before Covid, which is amazing. Not us though, as we were missing the tourists, the students and the people working in the offices in and around Central London, where the shop is located, who are our main customers. It will be interesting to see how it goes when we open again on Saturday. I've managed to get the stockroom under control this week, which is good. It's all been tidied and vacuumed and the cages have virtually been emptied of pre-Covid donations. I always feel better when I get on top of it. Things might change very quickly in the coming weeks, but for now it is managable. Today, I've spent 4 hours driving to pick up a new to me bike, that I bought on eBay on Monday. It's the same model as my previous bike, that got stolen last year, only it's the ladies as opposed to the men's version. It fitted in the back of the car once I'd put the seats down, so was easy to collect. It's lovely. I've been for a little ride on it already and it feels so much lighter than the bike I've been using for the past couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to riding it to work tomorrow, if the weather is good. This week, I took the bus twice, as the weather was very changeable. The experiences I had on the bus were very changeable too. Some journeys, usually going into work, I ended up being practically the only person on the upper or lower floor of the bus. It was like having a personal chauffer to work. The journeys home were much worse though and one night was particularly bad, when a group of young boys, about 8 of them all sat around me at the back of the bus and none were wearing masks. One even sat next to me so it was difficult to get out. Not a great experience, hence why I'm so happy to have the new bike. OH just needs to do a few adjustments to it for me and it's ready to go.