HollieKApparently some of the Raven Hotel in Droitwich may be salvageable, after the devastating fire on 10th August. This is good news, as it looks as though it has been destroyed.
It has been a very long week of not being allowed to take in donations or send anything to the warehouse, as they've been overwhelmed by a huge quantity of donations and not many people available to sort them. Hopefully things will get back to normal next week when the restrictions are lifted.
Had an instructive and interesting session of looking through CCTV after a customer asked us to check whether they'd left something at the shop. We confirmed that they didn't leave the article in question, but now have a lot more questions about the customer.
Someone set fire to the Raven Hotel in Droitwich on Sunday. Firefighters are still damping down hotspots today.
July 2025 Books Read: 15
Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Oracle - Thomas Olde Heuvelt
The Science Of Discworld II: The Globe - Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen
Flint In The Bones - Eva St John
How Soon Is Now? - Paul Carnahan
The Other Side Of Midnight - Simone St John
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
Artificial Selection - Marianne Pickles
The Quantum Curators And The Enemy Within - Eva St John
Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone - Benjamin Stevenson
Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect - Benjamin Stevenson
Hex - Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Service Model - Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Gone World - Tom Sweterlitsch
Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret - Benjamin Stevenson
This was yesterday's mystery object, that is probably immediately recognisable to anyone with small children, but none of us had seen one before. At first I thought it was for counting, but the numbers didn't make sense. It was only once I'd realised that columns 2-10 and rows 2-10 were the times tables answers that light dawned about the first row and column being the numbers being multiplied. It probably had the addition square on the other side, but I didn't think to look.
Anything is obvious if you know what it is!
After my ophthalmology appointment back in June, where I found out I may have primary angle-closure glaucoma and will need laser eye surgery, I finally got a date for the surgery. At least now I can prepare for it.
I did another 1 mile walk-run this week, and managed to set the timer this time around: 11 min 39 secs. My body is very much wtf about the whole thing, and will probably complain for most of the next week, but I'm happy that I've done it.
Reading "Everyone on this Train is a Suspect" (by Benjamin Stevenson) and trying to see if I can work out whodunnit before the narrator. I'm taking notes, and know that it is a 'fair play' mystery, in that I get to know any salient clues, and any red herrings, at the same time as the narrator does. I'm pretty sure I won't work it out before the reveal, but it's a good read and well-plotted.
Sometimes we have to spend some time trying to work out what exactly a donated item is for. This pair of shoes was a bit of a mystery, with thick hard soles at the heel and toe, but no sole at the arch of the shoe. Eventually we tracked it down to a dancewear website, and found out it's a dance sneaker. Fascinating!
