Let battle COMMENCE

Who will be the new manager of the charity shop?

- Rosie x

You could have knocked me down with a feather. No wait, the days when you could actually knock me down with a feather are a distant memory. These days it would take the entire bird, and a pretty hefty one at that. So let’s cut out the colourful figures of speech and just say that the news was a bit of a surprise.

There will now be a prolonged power struggle. Bookmakers will no doubt be offering odds on the outcome. There will be plots, and negotiations that will carry on long into the night (pausing only for coffee and sandwiches, oh, and perhaps a slice of that very tastylooking Battenberg cake).

What is this momentous news? Mrs Beasley has announced that she is stepping down as the manager of our charity shop. And if that isn’t momentous, I don’t know what is.

‘I want to find myself, Rosemary,’ she said. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think during lockdown and I’ve realised that I’ve not been developing my full potential.’

It was as if the body of the old Mrs B, who ran our little charity shop as if it were ICI or Microsoft, or one of that crowd, had been taken over by the spirit of a laid-back hippy.

‘I’ve been doing some painting for the first time in years,’ she went on, ‘and I’ve found I have quite a talent for it. I’ll show you some of my watercolours if you’d like.’