Storytelling Sunday - Thank you for calling Wickes, how may I help you?

I actually answered our phone at home like this a couple of times, I said it so often at work. My Saturday job while I was doing my A Levels was in the very unglamourous Wickes DIY store! 4 of my college friends and I  started there when a new store opened near my home. We were there begging for autographs at the grand opening with Chris Tarrant and his then Capital Radio sidekick, Kara Noble. Every Saturday, and 2 evenings a week, I dressed in my gorgeous red jumpsuit and went out on the shop floor. Sitting on the tills and counting bricks was tedious. Shelf filling was boring, but at least provided the opportunity to slacken off and have a chat. The worse job of all was cleaning the kitchen and bathroom displays. At least once a month a toddler would mistake the display toilet for a functioning one!

No, I absolutely DO NOT have a picture of myself. They seem to have updated the uniform a bit since my jumpsuit!

 It was much more interesting when I became senior enough to work the phones and deal with queries on the customer service desk, even though most of the queries were complaints. One customer came up to me on a Saturday and placed a small box on the desk
"I bought this box of 100 nails on Thursday." He announced
"Yes, Sir?"
"There are only 96 in there. What are you going to do about it?"
When I stopped laughing, I gave him his 4 nails!

Another day, on the tills, a customer approached with half a dozen boxes in his trolley. They said 'White Downlighters. £4.99' and at the time I knew the product code off by heart. I picked one up and opened it to make sure it was intact. Oh dear. There was a brass downlighter inside. Not what the customer wanted, I innocently assumed. I opened another. Another brass one (price £9.99). All 6 boxes had been opened and the contents deliberately replaced with the more expensive item. Funnily enough, the customer didn't wait around for me to ask the manager to get the white ones for him!

I worked at Wickes for 2 years, but left when I moved away to college. Then, going from the sublime to the ridiculous,  I landed my dream holiday job. In A Chocolate Shop! Posh, handmade Belgian chocolates, no less. My name is Kirsty and I am a chocoholic. I was in heaven!

Every Christmas, Easter, Valentines and Mother's Day for the next 4 years I worked there, hand-wrapping beautiful boxes of luxury chocolates. I worked hard; there were always queues out of the door at peak times, but I revelled in it. The smell of cocoa, the pretty lengths of ribbon.  I learned to wrap and decorate a box in under a minute. I can still wrap a mean birthday present, as long as it's square! I even I got 50% discount, and I was encouraged to try all the produce so I could give the customers helpful advice!

Those are the only non-teaching jobs I have done. What about you? Any work experience to share? or any other stories? If so, head over to Sian's Storytelling Sunday and link them up.

Storytelling Sunday - an English girl in Morocco

Aged 20, as part of my degree, I got the chance to join a field trip to Morocco. Amazing! We stayed in a Berber village in the High Atlas Mountains for 3 days during which I danced (badly) to traditional music, ate delicious tagines with my fingers and used the other hand to wipe my bum. A caravan of muleteers took us on a 2-hour ride up narrow mountain paths to the highest souk in North Africa. I had only ever been pony-trekking before this and the nimble mules were not built for comfort, but it was the most amazing journey. However, shortly after we set off it started to snow (apparently almost unheard of in December in this part of the world, and you can see from the picture below what the weather was like before we left) and by the time we reached the souk it was a near white-out. There was no way the muleteers were going to entrust their livelihoods to inexperienced Europeans on the treacherous return journey so we agreed to walk and they led their precious beasts. Halfway down however, as the snow turned to a blizzard, one muleteer took pity on me. He allowed me to mount the mule, covered me completely with a waterproof djellaba( long coat/cloak) and I spent the last hour of the trip blinded and shivering as he led me back down the mountain to the village. Never have an open fire and a hole-in-the-ground toilet been more welcome!.

The last two days of our trip were spent in a 2-Star hotel in Agadir, after we had walked for 3 hours to get back to civilisation because the snow-covered mountain was inpassable for the minibus which had taken us up there. Oh! The joy of a shower and clean hair! Then out into town to explore. At the time, I had long hair and I had left it loose to dry after my shower. Everywhere I went, Arab men would reach out and stroke it, which thoroughly unnerved me, but I did not feel really threatened as it was broad daylight and I was with a mixed group of friends. We wanted to shop, but we were all nervous about haggling. Stopping to examine a tempting display of beaded jewellery outside a small shop , we were ushered inside by the owner. It was lined with beautiful fabrics and kaftans. I didn't even ask the price - I was sure I couldn't afford any of the gorgeous embroidered kaftans, but the owner had seen my interest and insisted on showing me how to wear one.

 I couldn't find a photo of me wearing the kaftan I eventually bought so I will have to try to explain it to you. Remember I was with friends, not alone, and I was wearing jeans, which I didn't take off. The short Arab man, with enthusiastic gestures, tied the ribbons on a long piece of  black fabric with  gold embroidery around my bust. He then took the end and brought it down my body, fed it between my legs and showed me how to put my arms through 2 armholes at the back. I felt throughly embarrassed, and, as no price had yet been mentioned I was worrying how he would react when I couldn't afford to buy the kaftan.
'How much?' I asked again
'How much you have?'
'100 dirhams (about £5) and £10 in English money. We go home tomorrow'. I thought this would sound more convincing. Of course it was not all the money I had. I was naive, but not stupid! And I still didn't think it would be anywhere near enough.
To my great surprise, he agreed without haggling. I must have overestimated the price by some way, but it was definitely worth a lot more than £15 to me., and I was relieved to get out of there without upsetting the Moroccan shopkeeper.
I wore the kaftan to several college formal events after that, and I still have it, but I have put on too much weight for it to look good now. I am keeping it until my daughter is tall enough to wear it. I wish I had a photo to show you.

I scrapped my photos from Morroco when I first started scrapbooking, but I think I might revisit this now and do a new page with more of the story. Thanks, Sian, for encouraging me to get these old pages out. I'm off to visit some more Sunday Storytellers now. Defintely looking forward to some more School Stories from Miss Smith.

Oh, and to make it easier for you, I have turned off Blogger's pesky Word Verification once and for all. (I hope, do please let me know it that hasn't worked)

World Book day costumes

I'm not a fan of dressing up - I have no talent for costume design, but both kids had to dress up as a book character for World Book Day this week.

This is M as Dora the Explorer. I do know she is not primarily a book character but Plan A (Hermione from the Harry Potter books) was scuppered by the fact we couldn't find the wand R was given for Christmas anywhere. M, quite rightly, said she couldn't be Hermione without a wand, so we had to revert to Plan B, a costume she already had in her dressing up box.

R went as Jack Stalwart. Jack is a 9-year Secret Agent, a karate blackbelt and a bit of a hero of  R's. I can recommend the series if you have boys of that age - lots of gadgets and derring-do!

I defintely feel a double page spread is called for here, although I'm a bit disappointed Plan A didn't come off, as I have some Harry Potter trading cards that would have been perfect for a layout about Hermione!





R

Some more holiday pics

A few days before I return to the UK and come down to Earth with a bump, here a few more pictures of what we have been doing. Although I will be very sorry to sat goodbye to the relaxed lifestyle here, I am ready to get back to work. I have plenty of photos to scrap, and a crop coming up soon to do it, and it's nearly September, which means Learn Something New Everyday.

Done!!

I feel I have been very productive these past 2 weeks and ticked off most of my To Do list, as well as other things which were added to my list as time went by and doing everything else which life threw up .

1. Finalise this term's Scheme of Work
2. Draft next term's Scheme of Work
3. Make an Easter Bonnet with M.  (actually I provided the hat and the decs from my stash and asked my childminder to make it according to M's exacting instructions. Great result, though.)

4. Spring Clean the house (including under beds and behind sofas) - partly, but not completely
5. Wash windows
6. Sort out children's summer clothes - give those that are too small to charity
7. Replace spare tyre in my car - not done, but apparently I'm legal without a spare - I didn't know that - so it can wait
8. Replace batteries in my car remote locking thingy
9. Colour my hair with the dye I bought 3 months ago
10. Pay in cheques that have been in my purse since half term
11. Buy pair of Spring shoes
12. Craft invitations for our Royal Wedding party
13. Buy Easter eggs for niece and nephews
14. Buy alarm clock for France
15. Organise nurse appintment for me, physio for R and dentist for the children
16. Arrange loan to cover debts necessary, but not fun!
17. Arrange bank transfer to French account
18. Have lunch with friends I haven't seen since Christmas - much more fun than cleaning windows, and more important, in my view.
19. Pack for France
20. Make April Counterfeit kit  I'll share that next

Wedding invitations

No. Not mine! I am having a small 'luncheon party' at home on 29th April to watch the Royal Wedding with family. I am proud of our British Royal Family and I like the idea of making this a bit special so I decided to make personal invitations and ask everyone to bring a dish of English-themed fare to share. There is plenty of great English food and it is so rarely celebrated.
At first I tried to make the invitations digitally:

But they were a little bland so I decided to go hybrid instead.
I printed out multiple copies of the Union Flag and cut one up into numbered triangles and strips.   Using these as templates, I cut small pieces out of blue and pink patterned papered and paper-pieced them back together onto the flags. Thereby making sure I got my Union Flags the right way up. If you need to know, the answer is here.
I wanted to print the wording onto acetate, but my printer can't cope with glossy papers (it takes 4 attempts to persuade it to accept photo paper, despite being called a photo printer) so I just reduced the size of the font, printed it in blue on white and layered it on top.

I love the fact that they are all slightly different, and I hope they will set a fun but traditional tone for the day. Now for the menu - I'm thinking a cold buffet that children and adults can both graze on while we are watching the no-doubt extensive coverage of the event on TV- roast beef, coronation chicken, Victoria Sponge. Any other English-themed food ideas?
Who else is planning something for the bonus Bank Holiday?