Hi everyone

 

We hope all is well with you…… It may seem like ages since you received the last newsletter from us….. This is probably because it has been ages since you received a newsletter from us. Due to a combination of a very busy summer season in the shop and particularly nasty computer virus, we have had neither the time nor the technology to do the website updates or get a newsletter out since July. But we are now back on the air and have caught up with sleep so here is the August/September/October Newsletter. 

As you can imagine, there is a huge mountain of new stuff for you to look at on the what’s new pages (4 of them this time)  http://www.lavenderpillow.co.uk/Whats_new.html  or if you want to browse the whole site go to www.lavenderpillow.co.uk

 

We have added lots of photos to the website taken at The Faerie Ball held in Penzance last Friday which are well worth a look at. http://www.lavenderpillow.co.uk/fairy_ball.html This was a brilliant event with lots of fun, music, faerie frolics and some stunning costumes. The event will be happening again next year and is well worth going to. So keep your eye on the what’s happening page on the website and join us next year. 

 

We have started to get very busy with people doing their Christmas/Yule shopping by mail order and we spend most of our mornings up to our ears in boxes, bubblewrap and parcel tape. So if you see anything on the website you are interested in, just drop us an email or give us a call (01726 844689) and we can get our flock of carrier bats to deliver it to your door. 

 

Welcome to the large number of you who are receiving our newsletter for the first time. You have all made the big mistake of signing our website guest book or Emailing us and now you find yourself sucked into the madness that is “The Lavender Pillow Newsletter”. But do not fear if you do not wish to receive our newsletter in the future, just reply to this email with the words “EEEEK! Mad people have my email address” in the subject field and we will remove you from our mailing list.

 

Those of you who regularly receive our newsletter will know that this is point when Bazz usually goes into Rant mode about whatever has wound him up over the last month, But as promised in the July newsletter….. just to prove that Bazz is not a grumpy old git……. Instead of the usual monthly rant, this month we will have the top ten things that make Bazz smile section, just to prove that he is a soft and fluffy cuddly bunny after all.

 

1. Tidying up in the clothing section and finding two garments on one hanger and there is no spare hanger anywhere…….. So people don’t want to steal our clothes but can’t resist shoplifting our hangers! This is obviously a sad indictment on the clothes we sell or maybe it’s just a testament to the quality of the hangers we use. Either way the bizarreness of the situation makes me smile.
2. Waking up on Monday morning and thinking I’ve got to go to work…………….. Yippee that’s great…… I do a job I love in a place I love with the woman I love (who isn’t happy unless she gets her full quota of sexual harassment at work). Meeting lots of nice people and selling them nice things. Now that really makes me smile. Wearing what the hell I feel like wearing, no office politics, no backstabbing, no psychopath boss, no tedious meetings, no buzzwords, no mission statements, no rules, no limits, no being nice to people you despise just because you have to share office space with them, no commuting, no rush hour traffic, no performance reviews, no departmental reorganisations. You have probably realised by now that I have suffered all these things in the past and you can probably understand why I now smile every Monday morning.
3. Rose. For being far more beautiful, glamorous and sexy than any woman of 56 who has had quads has any right to be.
4. Slinkbat the cat (not just A cat but The Cat)…… Who is the most awkward, cussed, stubborn, mad and downright peculiar creature you could ever wish to meet but is so cute and loving that he gets away with murder. He also gets far more fuss and attention than is good for him which reduces him to a tangled knot of legs and tail that purrs so loud he starts gurgling.
5. Rose. For making lots of dreams come true (including some I didn’t know I had).
6. People who come into the shop for the first time and say WOW!....... then spend an hour wandering around wowing at everything. It makes all the work we have done to make the shop what it is, seem worthwhile.
7. Rose. For just being Rose
8. Seagulls. Now most people who live near the sea hate seagulls with such a loathing you would think they were the spawn of hell. They rip your rubbish bags apart they crap all over everything and swoop down and snatch pasties out of peoples hands. They are theoretically herring gulls but they seem to have evolved into a new species “The Pasty Gull” as they probably have not caught a herring in decades and just live on tourist leftovers and the contents of the litter bins. However we (being an alternative gift shop) love them. They are beautiful birds who are so graceful when they are gliding around in the air. When we go up country, we miss the sound of them calling in the morning. They have just as much right to be here as we do and have probably been nesting in Mevagissey before people moved in. In fact there are a pair who nest near the shop (Sammy & Samantha), who we have made friends with. They have a nest full of chicks that need feeding and we put leftovers out for them (a capital offence here in Mevagissey). Strangely enough…. They have stopped crapping all over the stuff on the shop forecourt and when it’s quiet they come wandering up to the shop doorway and say hello. We have even made our own Sammy the seagull postcard which sells very well.
9. While we are on the subject of Sammy the seagull postcards….. A bloke stood at the door looking at one and said “How do we know that this was taken in Mevagissey it could be any old seagull from anywhere” I said “I know it’s in Mevagissey because I took the photo, I designed and printed the postcard and if you like I’ll take you outside and introduce you to Sammy, his missus and their kids” The Bloke looked at me as I was mad (a common problem) and wondered of rather quickly. I just had to smile.    
10. The fairy wishing well….. OK so I have a strange sense of humour…. But every time I see a bloke dropping a coin into the wishing well I have this vision of the wish fairy (who is a little hard of hearing) magicking up a little person about 12” tall playing a piano……. Think about it………..
11. A very blond girl in a pink tracksuit wandered into the shop with her friend and said “I quite fancy turning Goth you know… but my best friend Trish says she would have to hate me if I was a Goth.” Her friend said “I thought Trish was an Emo.. why would she hate you if you were a Goth?” The first girl replied “No she was Emo last month…. She’s a Neo Nazi now….” I sometimes wonder if young people have lost the plot…… or maybe I’m just getting old.
12. Last week I was walking to the shop when a tourist in a rangerover had to break suddenly to avoid hitting a pickup truck coming the wrong way up a one way street. The tourist wound his window down and said “Oi, this is a one way street and your going the wrong way”  The driver of the pickup truck (who shall remain nameless for legal reasons) stuck his head out of the window and said “Oh the one way streets, they be for the tourists, We live ‘ere and we goes where we likes my ansome.” The thing that made me smile was that he wasn’t joking and actually believed that this was the case.
13. Rose
14. Rose
15. Rose
16. Rose
17. Rose
18. Rose   
19. Erm…. Did I mention Rose…..
20. Just Rose really……Ok so it was supposed to be a top ten but on a scale of 1-10 Rose registers at least 20 as far as I’m concerned.

 

OK so there is a bit of a trend developing here…Maybe I should get back to the ranting before you all start feeling sick. Funnily enough there have been just a couple of things that have made the hackles rise on my otherwise soft and fluffy neck……  

 

Cyclists…. Not all cyclists…. Just the few really annoying ones who wind me up on my way to the shop every morning. Let me explain….. The shop is in Mevagissey and we live in St. Austell. There is 5 miles of bendy twisty narrow road between the two with very few safe overtaking spots, so any cyclist on the road tends have about 5 slow moving cars behind them. This tends to lead to great frustration and dangerous overtaking manoeuvres and makes the road very dangerous for both motorists and cyclist. The Council recognised this situation and at great expense installed a cycle path which runs through some nice woodland and follows the course of a small stream. Most cyclists who use the road breathed a great sigh of relief and now thoroughly enjoy this pleasant journey in the pollution free safety and tranquillity of the cycle path. However…… Some belligerent and suicidal cyclists choose to ignore the cycle path and insist on endangering themselves and other road users by continuing to use the road. I know, I know, cyclists have just as much right to be on the road as motorist but this is just pure bloody mindedness.     

 

Then there was the guy who came in looking for one of those copper bracelet with magnets in to help with his arthritis. We stock just the item he was looking for…. It is copper with a nice Celtic design embossed in brass and two magnets. Due to the large amounts we order we get them at a very cheap price and sell them for £2.50 each (we have seen the same item selling for £12 in other shops). The poor guy was somewhat phased by this and insisted that they couldn’t be real for that price……. We explained that it was real copper and the magnets were real and you could pick up metal objects with them, however, he couldn’t get his head around the concept that they were only £2.50 and insisted that they couldn’t be the real thing at that price. He didn’t have one and left the shop to go looking for the same thing at a more reassuringly expensive price. We must be the only shop in the world who loses sales for being too cheap. The other trend we have noticed is that people walk past the shop and we hear them say “Oh I don’t dare go in that shop….. They have too many nice things and I’ll just spend too much”. It seems we are in danger of going out of business for having too good a range of stock and selling it too cheaply.

 

So that’s it for this time and we will try to get the newsletter out a bit more promptly over the next few months.

 

So until then

 

Bright Blessings from

 

Bazz & Rose

The Lavender Pillow