Now We Are Six (Months)...

Yes indeedy! Dottie and I are both officially six months old (well a bit more than that actually but I have been suffering from severe blogophobia and it seems that I am very tardy with this post...). When you're young whenever you're asked your age you always have to add on the months to your age, I think my youngest daughter who is ten has just stopped saying "9 and a half", or "nine and three quarters..., as a mother of a new baby you take great delight in knowing just how many weeks, days and even hours old your baby is. In a relationship you know exactly when you were first asked out, your first date, your first kiss etc and Dottie and I, well we know to the very minute when we were born so to speak... and speaking as a "proud parent" we've had a lovely, fun and adventure full childhood!



The Emporium is taking bigger, more confident steps each day, that's not to say we've not had a few wobbles along the way, our enthusiasm for finding new treasures in not waning and there is always, always a sense of fun and mischief in what we get up to.



It is perhaps time that we stuck to and followed most closely the rules of our new staff handbook - ssssh don't tell Dottie but I am going to give her a copy very shortly. Being important business people (tongue firmly in cheek here) we do need to keep up to date with all the new goings on in the world of commerce and this thing they call the world wide web. So I am sure this little book will more than pay for itself...



For example, did you know, and I bet you didn't, that ALL these things are available on the internet? Well, well, well...
This book will teach us all about "cookies" (no, not the custard cream I kind, of which I think we are now connoisseurs), it tells us that Dottie and I are now "e-tailers", it explains what a "portal" is, not the kind in Harry Potter apparently, and, perhaps, most scarily that my fridge or dustbin will be able to update my shopping list in the very near future (but don't ask me how).
Written only ten years ago my how times have changed...



As for Dottie and I, these past six months have taught us an awful too -
1. Give things a go... if you spend hours and hours, months and months chattering to each other about your fantasy shop, then why not make it a reality?



2. Never press a button unless you know for certain what it does! (Dottie will know exactly what I mean here...).
3. If you press a button and you're not sure what it does, then be prepared to spend hours, days, weeks on the phone putting it right again.
4. Always be surprised by the patience and understanding of your customers after you have pressed the said button and the lack of patience and understanding by those who are meant to be "solving the problem."



5. Be prepared to 'meet' lots of friends along the way... how lovely it is to have returning customers, to gradually build up conversations with them and have some idea what it is they're looking for.
6. You can never have enough tissue paper, string and brown paper...
7. Dottie can never have enough sellotape...
8. Thank heavens my phone contract allows for limitless free phone calls to my partner in crime as the need to chat hourly is of the imperative!



9. Take photos while the sun shines... you never know when it'll be sunny again!
10. Realise how lucky you are to have such supportive friends and families, who understand why you "need to check your emails" and are now used to your morphing into your alter egos and now call you "Dottie" and "Milly" too.
11. There are never, ever, enough custard creams in the biscuit tin...



12. And finally, I have learnt, that I couldn't have chosen a nicer person to hold my hand and share this adventure with - thank you Dottie x




Have a great weekend, I hear that love is in the air, hope it blows your way too
x