Right, guys, I'm in the house, still waiting for the snow.
Oh, na na na, me!
I haven't so much as had a snowflake in Blackwood.
Right, the shops are open tomorrow.
Risk-a-roo isn't at the moment.
We've got another member of staff off of a bereavement, so bear with us.
We will be opening the three shops back up.
We've got to juggle some stuff around.
So, we've got to start... why am I going to do it?
Right, see this bit over there?
See that corner over there?
So, I put my... remember when I put my headboard there and that Lindaloo stole it and made such a big fuss about it?
And, you know, we're looking for where Lindaloo lives now to deal with her.
Because she's just, you know, got nothing better to do with her life.
The headboard was damaged, so I wrote on it, shop at Bowie.
Yeah?
And she took it, and we know she took it, because one of our mothers live adjacent...
I won't say where, but they live adjacent to that area, and she got it on CCTV.
So, I know who Lindaloo is, but I want to find out where she lives, so that we can issue her with warnings, etc.
You know, bearing in mind that Lindaloo says she's disabled and can't walk, right?
She picked up a headboard and ran off of it quite... agile-y.
So, you know, I'd like to send that off to the PIP.
Anyway, that corner there, I also put up a picture that was damaged.
I put the picture up for ages, for free, and nobody wanted it.
And it was a bit too big for my car to take, for Ellie to do her sign painting on, right?
So, I was like, oh, I'm going to do this picture now.
So, I was going to try and take the batten off the back of it, and just keep the batten.
But I was like, hang on, I'm going to put a new shop down this way.
And it worked.
Put it up against those pillars, this, but there, and it worked.
And people who were coming down the road were going, oh, I didn't realise there were all these shops down here.
So, it didn't just work for me, it worked for the other shops.
There's cafes down there, nail bars down there.
There's Fresh and Go, the old, new Willys.
Willys?
Willys?
Oh, my God.
It's down there.
There's loads of shops down there, right?
And there's going to be more, because they're going to be doing all this work down there, with the market, you know.
So, it's only good that we're getting people to come down that road.
There's travel agents down there, lovely little travel agents down there.
The girls are lovely.
So, yeah, you know, it's only benefiting us, isn't it?
You know, any other trade in the business, is it?
And it doesn't matter if the council or chief of the pavements take it, because it was rubbish anyway.
Thank you to the council for picking up my rubbish for free.
The council don't pick it up, because they know what we're doing.
And they know I'll use it until it dies a death, which it did die a death before Christmas.
And Daniel took the baton off it, because he had the same idea as me.
He saved the baton off the back of it when it was completely dead, and then he recycled the actual canvas part of it in the appropriate rubbish.
Okay?
So, we got a nice little bit of baton there, and the sign was useful for at least a month right the way throughout December.
So, I'm going to, like, put a few...
So, what happened was, because it was December, it blew down.
So, rather than the new look girls going out and doing it and putting it back up, or the barbershop putting it back up every five minutes, or customers having to pick it up, I took down one of those play tables that make the annoying sounds, because it was getting on my nerves anyway,
which I only, you know, I think I only put it up for a pound or two quid, something like that, out the front.
So, I took it down to prop it up.
Then somebody messaged me on Facebook to say, I've been into new look to ask them who's table this is, and I want to buy it.
And I don't know where your shop is, I can't find you.
I said, oh, that's okay, pay online, pound.
So, she bought it and paid online.
And I thought, well, we get a couple of things like that.
Sometimes we get bouncers without the bars going over the top.
And, you know, so it's missing a part, but it's still a good bouncer.
We wouldn't get rid of it because it's still a good bouncer and it's still safe to use.
So, I thought, well, I could put a couple of bouncers down there every day, just like that.
Put a pound on them, two pound on them, and if people want them, they can either pick them up and pay online, or just come up to the shop and pay on your card.
But message me you've done it, because say you pick up two bouncers at a play table and think, oh, I'll have these for three quid, and then go off and do something.
Message me that you've got them and you want them and you're going to pay when you get home and you've got Wi-Fi and things like that.
I did it yesterday because the Wi-Fi was down.
We had a couple of people in the shop, wanted to buy stuff, couldn't get the Wi-Fi app.
I said, well, you can either pay cash, but I would rather you didn't pay cash, because HTT keep calling us money launderers and scammers.
So I'd rather you pay by card, because it's all traceable.
Do it when you go home, and that's what they've done.
They paid it when they went home.
It happens like that sometimes, doesn't it?
So, they'll be there, they'll be like bouncers.
If it's a pram, it's not going to be like a 300 pound pram.
It would be like a pram that we're asking a tenant for or something like that, or whatever.
Especially as the weather's getting nicer now, you know, we can do with that.
Well, it's not getting nicer, but it will.
I'm preempting to March now.
So, I'm going to start doing that.
Now, I did it with a high chair that was missing the straps, and I couldn't get the straps anywhere for it.
And it was a bit rough anyway, the high chair.
I did it in Pontypool shop with an arrow on, and I wrote all over it with my best pen saying, don't move this.
This is my sign.
It's a sign prop council.
Don't move it.
And the bin man come and took it.
Right?
Nobody is going to steal a high chair with no straps on it.
It's a bit ropey with signs all over it saying, don't steal it.
It is a sign prop and arrows all over it.
So, we'll probably do the same thing in Pontypool on the square, but I'll have to tell the council people, don't steal it.
It's there to tell people where the shop is.
Right?
If we get something that's a bit naff, we can do that.
And, well, Risca, we're right outside the high street anyway, so we get so many walkers by, we put stuff there anyway.
So, I can't see, I can't really see.
We could put them down by the park, a couple of bouncers, and if you wanted to pay for them.
I'm just thinking bouncers, because we get so many, or Moses baskets we gift out for free, don't we?
We usually give two.
Sometimes we give three, because we'll give one for grandma's house as well.
Because we get so many Moses baskets in, we gift them out for free.
I'd rather mums have one upstairs and downstairs, because if somebody carries a Moses basket upstairs, for the night's sleep, people have been known in the past, not with us, there have been cases where they've put the baby in the Moses basket, carried the Moses basket upstairs,
baby's fallen out of the Moses basket, or they've fallen, and then the baby's injured.
So I'd rather give somebody two Moses baskets, so they've got one upstairs, one downstairs, and don't need to move them, and one for grandma's house as well.
Because you already bring them back when you're finished with them.
So we could dot them around and say, if you want this item, pay online.
Or put our arrows on it.
So just for you to be aware that we know all the businesses around here.
We're friends with all the businesses around here.
Don't steal them.
Please tell the kids to leave them alone.
We don't get a lot of problems with kiddies anyway.
Right?
Other than Caerphilly, which I wasn't expecting.
Yesterday I had three boys come in, and I said, you can't come in, you've got adults with you.
I won't have lads in the shop, because remember we had those ones the police had to arrest, remember?
Because he had his hand down his trousers and things like that, remember?
And they arrested the two of them.
No, they must have had previous to be arrested like that, because the police just swooped in on them in Pontypool.
It was about a year, 18 months ago, maybe even two years ago now.
And I find that lads are not very good in the shop anyway.
The girls come in, when the school girls come in, they come in and they buy bits of jewellery and clothes, and they're quite calm and collected and get on with it.
We don't have the school boys in, okay?
So I had three in yesterday, and I said, no, you can't come in unless you've got an adult.
And they said, oh, he's 16.
I said, well, it doesn't matter whether he's 16 or an adult.
So they went, and they went, right?
So, you know, I don't need to put their faces on and things like that, because they went.
And I'm sorry, but we've got to do it, because they're not going to buy anything, right?
And they're just going to be a nuisance for me, and I'm working, or another member of staff.
And then I had two boys that were a bit older, I don't know, 14, 15, hanging around the front, trying to pick up...
Well, they had a dog that's on...
You see those teddies, like a dog on a lead, like a stick, and the stick is rigid.
And they'd started bashing that about at the front.
So I went out, they said, what are you doing?
Put it down.
And they went.
But then they were hanging around, just down by the New Old Woolies, just down by there, and I was watching them like a hawk, because I thought, yeah, you're up to no good, because they have stuff out the front of their shop as well.
And they went in the end.
And then I had a bunch of girls in, and they were lovely.
So just for you to be aware, can you just tell the kids that if you see bouncers and stuff like that there, not to kick them, not to break them, not to damage them, not to steal them, leave them there.
Because we won't leave them there overnight.
We will come down and we will pick them up at the end of the shift.
Like I do with the little pink dressing table, that's been there since we moved in.
And the barber shop keep an eye on that for us.
They keep an eye on that for us every day.
And it's got a little...
it's a rubbish little...
like clean up nice, I don't know.
Anyway, it's a really old fashioned little Barbie thing.
I don't think anybody wants it.
I've had it at the front for free.
And I've had it there since we moved in with an arrow on saying, update new shop.
And I literally put it down by the edge of the barbers every day.
And it's been there ever since.
Because the barber boys keep an eye on it for us.
And they're like, anybody looking at it, they say, no, no, that's Jayne's, leave it alone.
Right, so...
I think we'll put a couple of things down with it and see what happens and see how it goes.
If you want to take it and pay for it, you can.
Or you can bring it up to the shop and pay for it with me.
But what I would suggest is drop us a message because then if somebody says, or they have a charity or whoever says, somebody's just taken two bounces, I can say, oh yeah, they've messaged me, thank you very much.
Brilliant, how's your day going?
Alright, so we'll do that.
Like I said, you know, we've had theft outside Pontypool Shop twice.
And twice they've been caught on CCTV.
And twice they've were contacted straight by the police because the police recognised them.
One of them stole the two stools, remember that?
And he ended up having to pay £20 more just for me to take it down off the internet.
I didn't ask him to pay £20 more, but I think he thought if he paid £45 for them and not £25, £25 for two kitchen stools is really cheap, they usually go £25 each.
Right, we ended up paying £45 for him because he made a fool of himself.
So there we are, I'm not going to turn it down.
And what was the other thing?
It was a bouncer, wasn't it?
And then, I was at the CCTV app in Pontypool Shop and there was two workmen on the other side of the road and they were like egging each other on.
And I was watching them, so I put the audio on, and he came right the way over then to something that was in the trolleys that was like fill a bag, remember when we were doing fill a bag for a pound and fill a bag for a penny?
And they had those signs on their minds, right?
And he came over
and went to pick something up.
And I'd already made my way to the door then, but I won out by the door.
I was just standing inside the door and watching him through the glass.
Watching him through the glass, you know, with the shop.
I was watching him and watching him and watching him.
Right?
And then he clopped me through the glass and he said to his mate, I've got it on CCTV because it records audio, he said to his mate, oh I nearly had that then.
Workman.
So I went out, so you didn't have it because you were on CCTV.
I said, what do you think I was doing standing there?
I mean, you know, these items were like a penny.
When we were doing fill a bag for a penny, we weren't even saying to people pay us the penny.
We were like, if you've got a penny, check it in the box.
But it was, you know, it was a PR exercise, wasn't it?
You know, to help get some toys out to people who really needed them.
But he was going to nick it.
So don't nick things.
You're on CCTV.
Same with Risca High Street.
Risca High Street is on CCTV and I got a neighbour, Rob, who got fantastic CCTV all the way down and all the way up.
And Rob don't miss a trick.
Right?
Because Rob have come forward and said to me, have you seen this?
Have you seen that?
Well, I haven't even noticed something's gone missing or something's not right.
Because remember we had the flag stolen from outside Risca and she never come back to pay for it.
Reported her to the police.
So yes, just for you to be aware that my CCTV won't reach that far but everybody else's CCTV does and everybody in that area works with us.
OK?
So please don't take things from there.
But there will be stuff on that corner plus my sign to say up here, you know, this is where we are.
And let everybody know where we are, guys.
Because some people forget we're up there.
Somebody said to me the other day, well, when are you open?
You need to look online when we're open because we rely on volunteers.
Yeah?
And we haven't been in for a month and I've been posted online that I haven't been in for at least four weeks because we had... we went away just before Christmas.
We had Christmas week off.
We were still absolutely exhausted when we came back and we had other stuff to do and we wanted to build the first set of racking in the donation centre.
Dan's over there now.
We just had a car full donated so he's over there now.
And it was cold and we had weather warnings of elusive snow and we just thought, well, customers ain't going to be out so we might as well stay do work from home or go into the donation centre.
But if people say to you, well, when is that shop ever open?
Which I mean, we're normally open so I don't know why people can't grasp when we're not open.
It's usually between 10 till 4.
I tell everybody it's 10 till 4 most days.
I don't know why people can't grasp it.
But there we are.
There are times when perhaps somebody's had a bereavement.
Because a lot of our volunteers are mothers.
Perhaps their little ones are ill and they've had to cancel last minute on us.
Or perhaps it's a grandmother and they've had to go and pick up somebody from school because something else has happened.
So it could be last minute.
But I always tell the volunteers, tell me what time you're open and what time you're closing the shop.
Because then I can tell customers.
Because I had a mother, two mothers that drove all the way up to Bryn Maw from Blackwood.
And Bryn Maw, she lied and said she was open and she wasn't open.
And I ended up giving those mothers £5 credit for their petrol next time they were in Blackwood shop.
Now they went all the way up to Bryn Maw to support us.
And the volunteer had said they were open.
I would have said to them, don't go up there, she's closed early, she's closed half past two.
If I'd have known.
Or I'd have put it on Facebook.
Bryn Maw store closed half past two.
And then nobody would have got up there, would they?
But there's me saying all the shops are open until ten to four.
And they're not.
Because people are telling me lies about what time they're opening.
So, if you see one of our shops let me know after ten to four, if I haven't put it on Facebook.
And obviously tell everybody.
If you see them standing outside the shop going ahhhh, looking up at the sign thinking when we're open.
So you need to be on Facebook to see when the shops are open.
And then add them.
If they don't know what they're doing, add them onto our Facebook.
Or show them online.
Alright guys?
So just for you to be aware now, it's primarily the school children that we need told to leave the staff there.
Okay?
Because not many people will nick a bouncer.
Or nick stuff like that.
Only weirdos.
Right?
And we don't want them in the shop anyway.
And we got them on CCTV.
So rather than ring the police over a two or three pound bouncer, it's easier to plaster their face all over Facebook.
And then no shop will have them in there then.
And they ruin it for themselves, don't they?
And I see that there's a lot more other shops that's copying me with those ideas of putting them all over Facebook.
Which you can.
You know?
You can put people all over Facebook because they know there's CCTV in the area.
So, you know, unless you specifically write to some company or the council and say, I don't want to be put on your CCTV, or anybody to see me on my CCTV whatsoever, they can do it because it's public domain.
You know?
And if you're committing a worse offence of stealing something, then obviously it's going to outweigh me putting your picture on Facebook anyway.
So, don't try and stop me from putting stuff there.
People have in the past, especially this Lindaloo, we're going to find out where she lives, and she's going to be sent a legal notice because she came into the shop when we had a volunteer there and I had to go with them in the shop as well.
So, I know who she is, but I don't know where she lives.
But I need an address, you see, to send out the legal documentation.
So, if you know who Lindaloo is,
please let me know the address.
I won't divulge the information you've given me whatsoever, and that you've given it to me.
Right, I'm off now because my mum's doing dinner.