Today was the induction for The Prince's Trust. First day ever, and with it came some pretty gutting news.

I won't be able to work at the ExtraCare shop like I used to. Normally I'd work there every day, Monday to Friday, even though I was only down for Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I love it there that much. Dad's going in tomorrow to let them know that I'll be mostly absent for thirteen weeks. I may still be able to work on Saturdays, but that means there are a lot of people I won't see. Chris and Geraldine, Mary and the others whose names elude me. There are a lot of people there who I adore who only work during the week, and even then only limited days. This is the only reason I want my thirteen weeks of The Prince's Trust to zip past. Because the people in that shop are bloody marvellous.

But we'll put that topic to bed, now. Dad can do his thing tomorrow, and I'll go in on Saturday to chat with Dawn about it. I need to make it clear that I'm not abandoning them entirely and that once these thirteen weeks are up, I'm back in there like a shot, plus my Prince's Trust experience.

( Anyway, how did it go...? )

Before I go, I thought I'd point you all to a little community known as literaryurgency - based on Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way', a book which in simplest terms aims to help the reader unlock the creativity within them, shut up the doubts that say 'it isn't good enough!' and get some work done on creative pursuits. It's a twelve-week course, so when you think you have some time, scuttle over and download the PDF version of the book they have posted up there! In the meantime, I'll be keeping you all updated on my progress.

Today, I've only really written my Morning Pages. These are three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing that should ideally be done in the morning as a way of shifting all your worries before moving on to the actual creative stuff. Quality doesn't matter; it's all about exorcising your demons before the day begins. Today I did mine a tad late, I'll admit (around eight at night), but tomorrow I plan on taking full advantage of the hour-and-a-bit journey to Windlehurst Community Centre.

As for the pages? I might share them. Eventually. Depends on how personal the worries are, really.

Since it's been a good few days, in which my posts have consisted of automated Twitter dumps that are screaming for lj-cuts, I thought I'd humour you all and make an attempt at proving my existence. Hello, here I am! *waves* You may not be able to physically see me; just imagine an eighteen-year old of 75% legs, 50% hair, 25% floral shirt and 20% silly hat waving at you. If it looks like Cousin It from his hippy/gender-confused days, you've taken a wrong turning somewhere.

How has life been on Planet Kelza? Not bad, but not terribly exciting. Two CDs I ordered well before Christmas have yet to arrive, and one that I downloaded from iTunes has transpired to be only half an album. Any brief truce I held with Apple, therefore, has been cast asunder. I am not happy with them.

( And this rambling wordage of Kelzian news continues... )

Right. My computer, I think, is now clean. I've had a decent sleep, and all is well with the world. The writing's going alright, I still love my job, I haven't come down with the flu... life is good!

Tomorrow I sign on, again at St. Helens. It's a buggerance enough doing it at the Newton office, I must admit; I hate the feeling of scrutiny I always get, like they're all thinking 'this one again? Why hasn't she got a job yet?'. Don't get me wrong, they're lovely people... I think the vibes are just down to my own paranoia.

I can't entirely complain, though. I still have a tenner from my Mum and I've now got an excuse to go to Kaleidoscope Records. Huzzah! I believe he had a load of Steeleye Span vinyls in last time, so I might squander my riches on those. I'll look through everything first, though, just to make sure I know exactly what he's got in. My vinyl collection is getting bigger and bigger and I bloody love it.

Yesterday at the charity shop we put out some ornaments; a really quirky little porcelain set of a miniature washbasin, bathtub and toilet. As odd as they sound, they were absolutely gorgeous. This morning, I was on the till and Dawn, the manageress, was looking around the shop. She turned to me and said "I see the little ornamental bathroom set has gone".

"Oh?" said I. "Did that go this morning?"

Things got weird at this point. Dawn thought I'd sold it to someone. She hadn't sold it, and we're the only ones who've been at the till these past few days. So if I hadn't sold it to anyone, and Dawn hasn't sold it, then clearly we've had a shoplifter in. Sometime today, most likely, as Dawn said the set was there this morning.

Today's been a busy day, though, so obviously someone's come in and taken advantage of the volunteers being distracted. Geraldine and I spent a couple of hours sorting out the bookshelves which hadn't been done in a few weeks, pulling off all the old stock to be sent on to the next shop and replacing it with new books. This took ages because the stock room has been literally filled with bags of donations and rags, so we had that lot to wade through... then we spent ages thinking up schemes to boost the book sales by putting the shorter, more interesting books at eye level, etc. Basically, there was plenty of opportunities for cretins to come in and nab stuff.

Unfortunately, you just can't keep an eye on everyone. The shop's such that for a prolonged period of time, there'll be nobody in there, then suddenly, boom! and the shop's full. And then there are days when there'll be only two of us in there, so we sometimes have to juggle jobs. Doing the book sorting today, I was also keeping an eye on the till. But I couldn't do that when I was back in the stock room getting things to put out.

Thankfully, most (99.9%) of the people that frequent the shop are lovely. I've been there long enough now to start recognising people who've come in a couple of times, and I have a little banter with a lot of the people I serve. Despite the odd idiot (this ruffian being my first), I still adore working there. I just need to be a little more careful with the till... *makes a lot of mistakes but is getting used to working it*

My Princes' Trust course starts in a couple of weeks! I'm pretty sure it starts with the one-week residential, which I'm quite nervous and excited about. I don't think I've ever been away from home amongst unfamiliar people for more than three days. The closest I got was the Year Six trip to Wales. Still, it sounds like it'll be an adventure, gallivanting about the hills and making sheds out of twigs and squirrel tears.

I have made like a genius and made a whole bunch of Amazon orders... mere days before Christmas. Consequently, my inbox has been quiet these past few days, save for the odd bit of spam e-mail here and there. The only e-mail from Amazon is one that begins with 'due to the adverse weather conditions...' yadda yadda. You can pretty much write the rest yourself.

Where have I been, this past week or so? Well, I was stranded in Lowton for the first three days, Due to the Adverse Weather Conditions. The rest of it I've spent working at the shop, watching Bleach, attempting to write... and generally doing anything but writing on here.

So here I am. Back. With a vengeance? No. More like with a slightly sore stomach.

( It's under the cut because I'm a horrible person who likes making your f'list shorter... )

Right, people! Now that I'm done waffling about myself, what can I do for you lot this Christmas? Would you like to see some artwork up here (as it's been literally years since I've done anything worth posting)? Would you like to see more writing being posted, perhaps? Tales of my musical conquests? Anything else? Harass me. You have my permission.

I am in what could be the shittiest mood ever. I was having a brilliant day through work; it was busy, but I was having a great time. On the way home, it was really frigging cold - colder than anything I've ever felt before. My feet and hands were numb and I wanted nothing more than to get home and straight into the bath without a hitch - no hypothermia, no slipping and falling on my arse.

So, near the traffic lights entrance to Clarence Street, I saw three kids (two girls and a boy) walking towards me, across the road. Faffing in the snow, and being a general nuisance.

They all know Ashley, don't they? They've given him trouble in the past, and they recognise me as his sister.

"Heads up!" the boy shouts, and lobs a snowball at me. It misses. Across the road with all the cars I can't do much except look at them like they're a bunch of idiots and dodge. He throws another one.

( And so the story continues... )

Today was my third day of work with the ExtraCare Charitable Trust shop in Earlestown. In a nutshell, it's a voluntary job as a shop assistant, and I get to do everything from sorting clothes, to steaming them to make them look presentable, to storing them, to sticking them on the shop floor, to running the till... and there's probably more that I can't remember.

It's my Monday, Wednesday and Friday thing. Nine to five - and I believe I'm the only person who stays until the very minute the shop closes, other than the manager and deputy manager - and I bloody love it.

The work? Knackering, both physically and mentally. Carrying stuff to and fro all day gives you one hell of a workout. You haul huge plastic binbags full of clothes out of the stock room into the sorting room, spend an hour on your feet going through everything, tagging and hanging what's worth selling and binning what isn't. Then you haul them all into the steamer/kitchen area and spend a further hour steaming all the creases out of everything. Then, you have to haul it all upstairs, usually making several trips, to the storage rooms on the second floor. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Sound tiring to you? It bloody well is. And it's flipping fantastic.

You see, it keeps you on your feet. There's always something to do. You're always moving about, carrying things, so you get a bit of exercise. And it's a challenge to the mind in some ways because of the complex sorting and pricing systems they've got going there. With clothes, you have to scrutinise them carefully for the slightest blemish. Marked ones get 'ragged', but the charity still receives money for scrapped clothing (50p per kilo).

For good clothes, you need to find a size, figure out whether it's been 'rotated' (sent in from another shop who's failed to sell it), and write all this down, along with the sort code (there's a different number for ladies' tops, ladies' trousers, menswear, kids' clothes, books, etc). Then you have to remember which hanger to use, remember to put a size cube on the hanger and actually tag the item. There's a lot to memorise, and when the process becomes second nature, things can be forgotten.

It's the same with running the till. There's this huge process you have to go through, and if you make a mistake, the till screams - quite literally - at you. If you press the 'cash total' button too early, for instance, it beeps loudly. And the method's slightly different when people pay via. card. I learned this the hard way the other day when I inadvertently created an anomaly in the shop's books - which Dawn the manager had to rectify with a call to the Head Office. Er - oops. Sorry, Dawn!

There's always something to do. We get loads of bags of donations every day, so there's those to be sorted. If not, there's tidying to be done in the stock room, on the shop floor - anywhere in the shop, really! Or, if you're a nutter like me who loves making tea/coffee for people, there's that to be done.

So, it keeps me busy, it hones my organisational skills, keeps me mentally alert, teaches me to socialise... and then there's the 25% discount and first pickings of anything that comes into the shop! Huzzah!

Speaking of which, I brought three more lovely items home today, all clothing. Two tops and a hat.

( In which Kelza goes on a ramble about what we all know is the main reason why she loves her job... )