We went into the city today on a quest for several things. I hate going into town it is so depressing and usually too busy to move. Today was no different. All the shops are built to an identikit design and have the same companies inhabiting them. Very few quirky or good shops to be seen.
Then also why do people have to walk through you as if you aren't there? Why do they then give you filthy looks if you can't move out of their way?
It is becoming an aggressive time I think. No one smiles hardly and if you say hello or good morning people look the other way. It used to be that when Mr mog and I went on the promenade lots of people would respond to our greetings or indeed smile and say good morning. No longer something that happens. Do we look weird? Do we look as though we will attack them? Who knows .
The other thing about going anywhere now apart from the busy factor, we very rarely meet an English speaking person. It seems that at least 4 out of 5 people here are foreign. We seem to have an incredible amount of East Europeans living here. There are estate agents signs on property for sale or rent in foreign languages, not English. At our local Lidl you very rarely hear an english voice at weekends. Our town is changing fast and not always in a nice way. I wouldn't go out at night here. In fact lots of areas I wouldn't go to in the day either. Not from the amount of foreigners but the amount of sheer aggresiveness and malice that there is.
I know things have to move on but do we have to lose our identity at the same time?
Back to our city visit. Did you know that of approx 8 charity shops only 2 now sell anything to do
with knitting? All the rest don't. This poses the question what do they do with the donated items? Throw them away? They must do if they don't sell them. Maybe it doesn't go with the new fashion image they are trying to project. Do your charity shops have a change of season sale where they reduce things for a day then are into Autumn etc? The stuff they don't or haven't sold goes for rags. What happened to the old fashioned charity shops where you could donate things and know they would sell them? They also quite often had something you needed out the back if not on the shelves.
I NEVER donate to the big charity shops any more. I take anything that I haven't freecycled to our local hospice shop or animal care. All their profits go to the charity NOT on big wages for manager and district managers and flashy cars for district managers. I like to see where my donated goods end up. I am speaking from insider knowledge here BTW I used to volunteer for a large charity many years ago and back then the salaries for the district manager were high and they got a new car every couple of years.
As you can probably guess today wasn't a good one:(
On a completely different note are the Big Issue people cloning their sellers?
We have one lady who sells in the city and no matter where we have been this past few months we have seen her or her double. Not just locally, we even saw her down in Glastonbury 300 miles away. Spooky or what?
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I went round the charity shops in Fort william last year as I wanted oddments of wool, the only yarn was scarf kits in the PDSA, went to Oban the next week and got yarn in at least 3 charity shops,
I have been told that charity shops are no longer allowed to sell knitting needles, as they are "dangerous weapons" [what is happening to the world?] Charity shops have all sorts of Health and safety things,,,etc to conform with now...a friend who works at one gave me two perfectly good beside lamps, because the shop couldn't justify getting the small amount of electrical equipment they had donated PAT tested.
At one point I went through my knitting wool "stash" and put the surplus on local freecycle.
Just like here then.
Our 'Big Issue' sellers are all Eastern European. Pretend they can't speak English until you tell them to go home... and then you get a mouthful of abuse that would put a streetwise 15 year old to shame...
In fact, I'm so sick of being abused that I now tell them to, "F*** off home if you don't like it here... oh no, they don't give you handouts like we do... you're scum."
Sorry, but, I am totally disgusted at what this area has become. Sounds like yours is not dissimilar...
I agree with your sentiments entirely. Aggressive behaviour seems to be the norm. I now do not donate to charity shops bits of braid, trimmings, material etc. if I cann't get to our local Salvation Army shop who although have had a makeover still remains a rummage shop, sad to say if I am clearing out these odds and ends go in my bin.
I have bought knitting needles at charity shops - I give them out at workshops,or sell them on. You have to ask for them now as they usually kept under the counter, where they're kept at all. Indeed, what is the world comign to!
Belated many happy returns...
the more I hear about the mainland the more it scares me, the only other language I hear on the island is gaelic,
I haven't looked for yarn in the charity shops here as I already have too much but there are a couple of charity shops that do sell what is donated,
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