Tag Archives: packing

Some more stamps…

24 Replies

We bought some stamp sets last week and I put this one to one side for a photo. The five stamps come to £1.89, which is, coincidentally, (and 20 years after issue) the value of second class Signed For postage.

They are a bit shiny so the individual shots didn’t come out too well.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

Sorry about that. They are a good set, featuring some great stories, and deserve better pictures than this.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Just a short post today. I may try another one later. It was a hectic day with 24 parcels to do – one with 46 items in it and another with 24 medallions. They take some packing!

Sounds silly after some of the jobs I’ve had to say I’m exhausted after packing a few parcels, but there you are – old age.

I also failed my blood test this morning, so I’m back again next week. Pah!

Can Spring be Far Away?

23 Replies

Today I fine-tuned my packaging techniques and learned the mysteries of the scanner. I haven’t scanned anything for over ten years so it was an interesting half hour, not least because I couldn’t find where the computer was storing everything. As a result I spent a lot of time going through files looking for images.

It seems that if you leave the scanner number as the name of the file it is stored in a different place to the ones you rename. I stopped renaming them when it was suggested it would make things quicker. What slowed it down again was trying to reunite them, and trying to identify the non-renamed ones from a meaningless string of numbers.

After finding them I then spent a lot of time trying to load them.

If you’ve never tried it, let’s just say that it makes WordPress seem so simple…

At the moment, although it’s wet, and intermittently gusty, it’s quite warm, which is very pleasant after the recent cold weather. There was a news item tonight which showed Nottingham Prison as it was last week. The skies were grey and there was slush by the side of the roads. It wasn’t just a different time, it looked like a different lifetime. That’s how quickly we forget.

Add a steadily lengthening day (the days in Nottingham are lengthening by just over three minutes a day at the moment) and things are really quite cheery.

Also on the news tonight, the company that refurbishes old British telephone boxes – yours for only £2,750 if you are looking for an impractical greenhouse, or somewhere to install a landline at the bottom of the garden.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Phone box with defibrillator – Heckington

 

How to Pack a Parcel

14 Replies

I had a crash course in shop work today. Ebay shoppers had a sudden urge to bid last night and we ended up with fourteen parcels to pack, including several with multiple items and two going overseas. This job can be quite exciting at times.

I’ve not quite got the hang of it  yet, because the ebay site has changed a bit since I last used it, and not necessarily for the better. However, I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

The stages of packing a parcel are –

Check ebay notification

Find item (stock control will, I hope, improve when we move shops)

Select correct envelope

Insert item into envelope (which may require wrestling and ingenuity)

Add compliments slip

See if it goes through the slots in the card we have – Large Letter or Small Letter

Weigh

Select appropriate postage rate for size, weight and country

Write postage on envelope

Put appropriate sticker on – Signed for, Special delivery etc

Stick stamps on

Seal

Write address

Write return address

Air Mail sticker (if necessary)

Customs Declaration (if necessary)

Simple enough, you would think, but I managed to cock it up several times. There are a number of ways to get it wrong if you are new to the job, talking at the same time and thinking of that delicious salad your wife is making you have for lunch. And that’s before you drop the pen, stick a stamp on upside down, lose the stickers…

All in all, an interesting day, for me. I’m not sure it makes riveting reading though, as I seem to have failed to capture the drama and romance of putting coins and banknotes into padded envelopes.

Tomorrow it might be a medallion. Who knows? Life can get pretty crazy at the cutting edge of retail.

The coin in the picture is from the reign of Elizabeth I (1533 – 1603). It was actually one of the detector finds from the farm, but I thought a coin picture would look good seeing as I work in a coin shop. 

 

 

 

 

 

Poppies and the end of the beginning

16 Replies

The poppy project is starting to take shape. Apart from that, it’s been a strange day – D minus 47, or minus 13 if you count days we will actually meet.

Fortunately the group is taking it well, with a few mutterings about farmers and plenty of discussion about what they are going to replace us with. It’s a little sad to be so easily replaced but that’s just how it is. In another way, I was thinking that it’s good that we have taken them to this point and they feel happy to embark on a new venture.  If this had happened a few years ago I’m sure we would have had more trouble about the change.

We’re not finished yet, as we’re still looking for somewhere to go, though we’re driven by optimism more than reality.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Dave, one of the founders, came to visit. He was working with Julia at the council when his contract came to an end and she decided she was fed up of constantly re-applying for her own job. The rest, as they say, is history. He’s been ill for a while, but is now on the way to recovery. That brightened the day, as the group always likes to see him. We’re going to get Men in Sheds to help repair his old electric wheelchair, which is currently refusing to go in the same direction as the joystick.

It seems like a small enough fault, but in the context of a man who likes to get out and about this represents the very narrow margin between sightseeing on a river bank and being featured in a high profile emergency rescue.

He’s challenged me to a wheelchair race when he gets it fixed, so watch this space.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Vicki brought the poppies in from the Barnstone Brownies, so the display is looking good. She’s really put a lot of effort into this, with making poppies and doing research – shame we won’t be able to build on it for next year. I’m thinking of burying the poppies after we’ve used them. It will be both an artistic statement, and an ancient military tactic: there is so much salt in them that the new tenants, with their promised landscaping, may find there is a permanent bald patch where little will grow.

We’ve also been doing a bit of packing, some Christmas planning, and rehearsing the Christmas entertainment. That might be better expressed as Christmas “entertainment” as a bit of Bollywood style belly dancing, a carol (yet to be decided) and a rendition of I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts is going to have an uncertain effect on the audience.

Finally, we have a picture of me wearing a hat from the lost property. According to Julia I look like the oldest of the Lost Boys. I’m not sure how to take that. If it’s a reference to Peter Pan it’s probably OK, but if it’s a reference to the film I’m not so keen.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The Oldest Lost Boy