The Grand Finale

I’m fired up.

I’ve never had such a strong desire to sell lights in my life.

That’s really saying something considering I’ve spent most of my life in a light shop.

The joke is this is our last week.

This Saturday we close our doors to the public.

And then we open them again on Sunday to pack up, and if a few members of the public fancy a quick purchase then we will let them in.

But then we really, truly close our doors.

It’s probably because these are our last 4 days that I’m so motivated to make the most of them.

Petra and I are assembling crystal non-stop from the moment we arrive in the morning till the moment we force ourselves to say ‘enough is enough’, which can be any time after 7pm.

Lunch break is a vegetable pasty up a ladder.

To keep us going Mum supplies us with the occasional melt-in-your-mouth Lindt chocolate that a customer gave us at Christmas.

“Good job I’ve hidden them or we’d eat them all,” she says, which doesn’t make much sense since she must know where they are to be giving them to us.

Already this week chandeliers have been bought for houses in China, Jamaica, Ghana, Nigeria and Wales.

We’re selling real beauties for half their usual price.

People that cried when they saw the prices in Selfridges are now crying for joy because they can afford a real crystal, gold or chrome-plated chandelier after all.

Mum has been working into the early hours to get orders wired up and customised for low and high ceilings. Next comes the packing of these purchases, which can take half a day if they are for shipping.

Some customers appreciate what we do and others don’t and that’s how it has always been.

I’ve moaned in the past but now we’ve reached the end of the journey I don’t feel like moaning at all.

I wake up and I want to be at the shop making things happen.

I want to be rushing around finding boxes, making sellotape handles, lighting up lights that have never been lit.

I wake up and I realise that I’m looking forward to going to work.

I wake up and I want to be with my fellow Shop Girls, because they are simply the brightest and the best.

Christmas Spirit and Olives

Christmas coupled with a Closing Down Sale makes life very busy.

My finger tips are sore after manic crystal pinning and I can barely zip up my vital fourth fleece which protects me from the arctic temperatures of our shop.

Fond memories of a nail salon in Bogotá come to mind and I push them away.

My hands currently resemble those of Santa’s great grandmother.

I’m not complaining. I love it when it’s busy like this.

When all the shop crew are together I feel happy.

There’s great banter and team work when Alfie is building lamps, Papa is throwing massive boxes down the stairs and Petra is laying out rows of crystal to pin. When Mum is going the extra mile by cleaning a half-price chandelier and I’m relishing the thought of a new space on the ceiling.

We’ve been working late to get our jobs done and on Thursday we reward ourselves with a bottle of wine and upgrade from a jar of Crespo olives to a superior pot of marinated ones.

It’s the little things in life, after all.

The little oily, herby things.

People believe we are closing now. Old customers bring us in chocolates and promise a drink that probably won't happen (but how nice anyway).

To make things a little more hectic, the Fiancé and I move north.

North of the river, that is.

I finally get the chance to be excited about having my own chandeliers.

Each time I come into the living room, I look up at the sparkly crystals and feel uplifted.

We get our first Christmas tree as soon as we move in and name it ‘Pepe the Great’.

We bring it home and find that its trunk is teeming with bugs.

The Fiancé grabs deodorant and a lighter, and the flames roar as he torches all the little beasties.

The smell is amazing. Pepe is less impressed.

Back at the shop, Christmas takes the form of a little bark crib in the window, complete with a mini fire that lights up.

Everyone wants to buy it.

“Sorry, I’m inheriting it,” I tell them.

What am I going to do after the shop?

The best I can!

As ever, at this time of year, I’m thinking it’s time for a revolution in my life.

Sometimes you get lost in the flow and you make excuses for not achieving your goals.

Lately I’ve been unable to get up early or squeeze writing time in at night.

I’ve been feeding my inner Spartan mince pies and half price sparkling wine and it’s all been very cosy.

The thing is, all the films on telly are insisting I spread the festive cheer and believe in Santa so his sleigh can take off.

I wouldn’t want to be a Bah! Humbug!

So...Ho ho ho, I think I’ll let the Christmas spirit bubble for the time being.

When January comes, a new story will begin.

Closing Down...Honest!

The shop has been closing down for two years and three months.

To be fair, it’s only been ‘closing’ most of that time. Mum thought writing ‘down’ on the window was too negative.

Last month she finally wrote the whole thing.

There was little reaction from the public so she painted around the letters in pink to make it stand out.

No one believes us but this time we’re not bluffing.

In fact we weren’t bluffing before. It just takes a long time to clear a three storey building that has been gathering stock for over thirty five years.

We put a sign on the door: 8 weeks to go.

That provoked a bit of panic.

“I better hurry up,” a customer said and then disappeared, leaving us wondering if he was talking about buying a light or catching the bus.

Inside the shop we put up the customary signs ‘Everything Must Go!’

Then we worried that the hagglers would be ruthless so Mum wrote ‘Nearly’ in front of each one so they wouldn’t think we were desperate.

There are lots of bargains so if you want a chandelier now is the time. You have eight weeks, honest.

Someone else is moving in so we can’t change our minds.

I’m not sure we can imagine life without the shop.

What will we all do?

“It must be magical working in here,” a customer said last week, her eyes widening with each sparkle of crystal and I didn’t know what to say.

Obviously it’s not magical working in a shop just because it sells sparkly things but you don’t want to dampen the mood.

We’ve had fun times but it’s exciting to be going.

It’s like being a baby bird about to be pushed off a cliff. Isn’t that how they learn to fly?

Harsh but effective.

I think we’re all ready to swoop off.

So hurry, if you don’t want a chandelier but still fancy a reminder of our lovely shop, my book is only a click away: Shop Girl Diaries

Shop Girl, the Egg, the Candlestick and the Basket

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I can’t sleep.

It’s the effect of winning the Author Blog Award.

I’m too excited and I want to DO stuff.

I want to plot my novel.

I’ve got an idea now I just need a dollop of time.

I thought about writing it in the shop.

I'll start as soon as the two women stop dithering over the brass miniatures, I thought.

It’s three for a pound and I’ve written the offer on a giant label.

For some reason people take longer deciding over these ornaments than over a five hundred pound crystal chandelier.

“A pound for one?” one of them asked.

“No, a pound for three pieces.”

“Which three?”

“Any three.”

Uncertain what to do with the brass eggs they tried balancing them on top of the mini candlestick.

“What about this?” one said, holding up a brass basket.

“Yes, you can have three of those, or mix them up.”

“How much is it?”

“Three for a pound.”

This is more than a £1.00 of my time, I thought. Then realised it probably wasn’t.

Apart from writing my novel, I also want to learn stuff about applications and widgets and embedding.

I’m suddenly bored of saying I’m not technical.

Why can’t I be technical?

I’m the sort of girl that gets excited about a good pair of wire strippers. Surely I can learn this computer stuff.

Furthermore, I’m determined to understand twitter. I wasn’t bothered about it until my blog got short-listed and I suddenly realised the time had come to embrace it.

So far I write a tweet and think what a stupid tweet that was.

Then I wish I could delete the tweet.

But to delete it you have to write a new tweet.

So I do.

Then I think what a stupid tweet that was.

So I tweet again.

Oh look, I have one less follower.

The mistake is to care so much.

It's just the excitement of having my blog noticed by so many people.

I’ll calm down soon enough.

I might even get offline for five minutes and scribble the plot for this new novel on good old pen and paper.

I’ll start when the next lot of women are finished choosing their ornaments.

They’ll be stuck between the egg, the candlestick and the basket.

They won’t realise they can have all three for a pound.

It’s so silly I might even tweet about it.

Shop Girl and the Little Tweeter

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The shop is full of bird cages.

A new pub is opening and the owner wants them wired up.

The cages are boot-sale dirty with traces of their long gone feathery occupants.

One still seems to have half a bird attached to the perch.

Stuffed?

Mum and I don’t make a move to touch them.

“They need a clean,” Mum says.

“I can do that later,” says our client.

On closer inspection, the bird is not stuffed but silk.

“Well it really should be done before we start work,” Mum says.

Normally we’d already be fiddling about with the potential lumiere. We can cope with normal dirt and nicotine but seeds and birdshit is another matter.

“I just need a rough idea,” our pub man says. “They’re not that dirty.”

“Yes, but it’s not just ordinary dirt it’s birds’ dirt.”

He looks confused.

“Avian flu,” Mum says with authority.

The thought makes me step back a little.

I feel itchy. I wonder if I’ve already got it.

“What do you want me to do then?” he asks tartly. “Take them away and clean them?”

He hadn’t banked on us getting all health and safety. It doesn’t last long.

“No it’s okay,” Mum says.

As ever, we’re too nice to put him through the hassle even if it means becoming the source of an epidemic in South London.

He says he wants the cages wrapped.

“Like Christo,” Mum says later. “You know, the one who wrapped half of Australia up in plastic.”

Mum suggests hanging CD’s in them to reflect the light.

So here’s the brief: a boot-sale birdcage with a light bulb hanging in the middle, surrounded by dangling CD’s on fishing wire wrapped up in a net curtain.

A few days later she sets to work scrubbing them.

As usual when someone brings in something battered and in need of repair, the other customers all want to buy it.

“How much is the birdcage with the CD’s?” they ask, one after another.

It spurs on the cyclical conversation of getting into design lighting.

Mum suggests doing a whole range of unusual, one off pieces.

“That’s great if you’re prepared to work for long hours at risk of getting no money,” I say, which reminds me I’m still writing.

“How are book Sales going?” customers will ask, fingering the pages of the copy I’ve placed strategically on the shop counter.

“Slowly,” I say.

They examine my picture on the front cover, then return the book to the pile and smile.

“Well, Good Luck with it.”

I wouldn’t need luck if they bought it.

Inevitably, after not buying my book, they ask how much the birdcage is.

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