An Announcement

This almost kills me to say but I have to for the health of me and my shop. I'm setting boundaries. And these boundaries are the shop opening times - 10.30 to 6.30 every day apart from Sunday when we're closed.

One of the best things about this shop is you! I love hearing and sharing stories and emotions and histories with you. It's fascinating and sometimes mind blowing and heartening and important. But this is also a shop, first and foremost. And more than anything, this is a bloody busy shop right now. We  must be doing something right because things have seriously gone off the hook and I suspect a lot of that is the heart and soul that's in this place - mine and yours.

So I am really mindful that that can't disappear but I'm also mindful that the shop has been a shit hole for a long time and e-mails are answered too late and orders are placed a day or two late because other stuff needs to be done and that has a knock on effect with everything else in the shop. There is nothing that I can do, and nothing that I want to do, about how busy we are in the day but I am increasingly aware that I'm staying over time chatting or getting in an hour early to get some of the to do list done and there's already a queue forming outside of the shop or people popping in for a couple of hours to chat and not buy and I'm a softie underneath it all and I find it really difficult to say - 'sorry, we're not open yet, come back in an hour' or 'gosh, it's that time already, I have to go now' or 'I'm sorry I can't chat now, I have a tonne of stuff on, let me help you buy the yarn that you came in for'. But really, it's for you and for me. Imagine coming into this shop and it's tidy! Imagine how much more you could see and discover. Imagine how much less pulling stuff out on the floor I'd have to do if I had time to actually tidy! Imagine how less stressed I'd be if orders were placed on time and the accounts were done! IMAGINE A HOOVERED FLOOR!

I think that there's a little bit of me (or actually a lot of me) that really enjoys being the 'magic wool lady' who can just get everything done with no stress but in reality, everything that the shop is and everything that I do for the shop (and I need to emphasise that not everything that the shop is is stuff that I do, some of it's just a special kind of magic caused by everybody that spends time here) takes time. So the Yarndale e-mail, that some people are still waiting for, took about two hours to sort out. There was no time to do it last week when the shop was open and a few times I stayed late with customers so there was no time then and then some nights I just needed off. So that two hours came out of my one precious day off. And now there are some people that haven't had it but I spent a lot of yesterday explaining that it is coming and please be patient rather than actually sorting out the problem, so I'll probably stay late tonight and do it. I won't be the 'magic wool lady' if I don't get at least some time off, I've learned that the hard way, I'll be the 'jibbering wreck in the corner surrounded by piles of wool' which is very much how I feel today. Haha.

And therefore I'm asking for everybody to be mindful of the fact that I'm a human being and I need time to do stuff. I love being around you and as loud and obnoxious as I can seem I'm really bloody shy at telling people where to get off. So I'm going to work on that, and if you could work on being out of the shop by 6.30 and not turning up before 10.30 and just popping your head around the door to say a friendly hello when you're not buying or not coming on Sundays when I'm teaching my lessons so that I have to stop and explain that we look open but we're not open then everything should work out much smoother in the long run. Yes?

I STILL LOVE YOU!

Love Eleanor. xxxxxxxxxxx