We are Re-Jigging and eek it’s never ending!

Yep yep – the pictures you see below this post are not now how we look in some part and by the end of the month will not be how we look at all!
yes indeed it’s true we are having a major overhaul and face lift – and yes no more would be comics out there with the ‘well boss you need’ it comments!
So anyway as you can well imagine the place is a bit of a mess as we move all the old stuff out and the new stuff in, rearrange units and change till points and displays, but by the end of the month it will be fantastic!
So far we have relocated all the New Fiction onto nice new units, and a tidy amount of the Secondhand fiction has also been rehomed as well.
We have the sale to end all sales going on at the minute as we have seriously culled both the secondhand fiction and the New Fiction and pulled out anything over 18 months old – these are now for sale at 10 secondhand for £5.00 or 5 New for £5.00.
Whicever way you look at it that’s some fantastic bargains going on there. The authors include Dan Brown, Arthur C Clarke, Audrey Howard and other top authors. Honest this is not dross just overstock we needed to shift to make room for the new units and stock!
So anyway Religious books are moving from their ‘stand alone and cannot be grown’ section in unit 3 over to the main bookstall – this way there is room for expansion – in fact there will be an extra 5 bays worth of space to expand into and some nice gift units and slat wall space as well – This will also put the Christian Books in a much more prominent thoroughfare than they are currently on – and the reason for this??
Because we are not ashamed!
In fact we are not ashamed of anything we do, including our LGBT section which has also been relocated in the move and this is now in a more prominent section as well – situated in the middle gondola of the main Fiction section rather than hidden in the corner!
we are not ashamed and we will not act as if we are – we will not apologise for our beliefs, for our friends or for our outreach!
That said we would like to announce that we are now also stocking Jewish Prayer Books and the Forms of Prayer, and we welcome all our friends from the Lincoln Branch of the Council of Christians and Jews to come by, it was good to meet you and be involved in a very small way with the ‘meditation of Advent and Chanukah’. Thank you.
Ok now also whilst I have your attention, Palm Crosses, Paschal Candles and the rest of the Lent/Easter paraphanalia are on order and in some cases even in stock! so NOW IS THE TIME to let me know exactly how many of what you want putting by!!
Pass the word around please – Lent Books are in and orders are being taken for Palms and Candles.
Thank you!
Ohh we counted how many jigsaw designs we had when we had to move them all for the new units! (These went fantastically well at Christmas and are still going well now, probably as we are one of the few places in Lincoln that does them, and we do them all year round and at very good prices as well!)
Anyway that would be just over the 100 mark! These span the gamault from 1500 piece puzzles down to the 8 piece childrens puzzles, with the most number being in the 500 piece range and then followed by the economy priced 1000 piece puzzles, though my favourites are the ones with the Gold and Silver highlighting – particularly the Indian Maid and Fawn one – just lovely! and then also the Shaped Fish & Dolphin Puzzle. Lots of different brands as well, Gibson Games, Jumbo, King, Paul Lamond Puzzles, Falcon, Heye, Classic Deluxe, Ravensburger and a few more as well!
Then there were the Paint By Numbers, both large, standard and small, and 2 different manufacturers styles in those as well. It certainly makes for colourful on top of the new units.
So anyway when the refit and rejig is done and about ten minutes after I stop doing my own victory jig all over the worklorn minions (who actaully have been working! and I have to admit may have some hidden architectural or interior design skills that have a lot to do with making best use of the tardis like propensity of the strange space in a Unicorn Tree domain! Thanks M1 & M2) then I will get out my camera and take new snappy snappies for you all who cannot come in and see it for yourselves.
See you in the shop soon – I am the one with 2 coffee’s on the go at the minute as one just doesn’t do it in a refit situation.

Bookcase Shuffle Completed and light has come to the dim!

Those of you that visited before the manic Christmas Market weekend, and indeed even in the week before will have noticed that the bookcase shifting boogie had been an ongoing process of near completion!

That is to say Secondhand was shuffled and has come out straight and bay like with no nasty walls and hidden hiding places, instead the bookshop is now light and airy and tidy and easily viewable from all places, and it looks good!

Alright so for a few days it looked like a bombsite, but now it is beautiful and it is alphabetical again! We also have wonderful flat tables for display purposes and its just nice, nice, nice – you will all have to come in and visit.

It got done last week when I had to forfeit my day off – even though I was very sick with nasty minion germs – and come in, well it was quiet ( until I started moving things of course that is!), I was feeling ill so I thought I would re-arrange all the furniture again to make the minion germs sweat it out and leave (works on real minions, give them lots of hard work to do and they often seem to make like invisible, all the while saying it is not so but they have other tasks I have tasked them with! so it might have worked with minion germs!) but they germs did not leave, but the job did get done! then on the following day once all the hard labour was done minion one returned to work just in time to alphabetacise (thats a bit like aerobacizing but slower!). And so it was done in time for Christmas Market.

Christmas Market time was as ever fun and filled with strange people wearing santa and elf hats ( bah humbug we repeat!) however we did also on the sunday have a visit from Darth Vader – lightsabre included! that caused a little stir for a while and was good fun too – shame the minions were absent that day as I am sure they could have swapped some awesome tales of the darkside with the darklord!

So anyway come visit the new look shop – it looks good, and other customers have said so too, the number of customers who have said they didn’t realise we were so big is quite good (though quite concerning too in a strange way) and the number who now just wander in to secondhand without saying ‘is it ok to come in’ is also very good! – many favourable comments, though it seems some people can’t help but to also say ‘oh no where are the books now’!! like we have hidden them! when in point of fact they are now much easier to see – when what they really mean is where is the one author I am reading/collecting at the minute, however as today minion one put up posters with arrows and diagrams, and as I can now stand at the till or computer and go , THERE just to the LEFT, turn slightly RIGHT bend down 27degrees perpendicular to the FLOOR and YES, THERE is that Kathy Reichs you wanted! all whilst still serving the queueing customers ( I multi-task you know), means it all seems to be working out to the good.

Anyway if you are after calenders or diaries you better get in fast as they are ripping out at a wicked rate and all we have left is what is out on the shelves now!

Same goes with Nativity Sets, Boxed Book Sets, DVD’s on warplanes and steam trains, and believe it or not Communion Wafers! all that prepping up for that Christmas Eve/Day lark.

I mean come on top christmas topics and gift stories – no Nintendo DS in stock, You can’t get a Wii and the GPS Sat Navs keep getting people lost – one would almost think there was a religious meaning to this season, no room in an in, surrounded by donkeys and asses in a stable with no indoor plumbing to speak off and the supposedly wise men being guided by a star in the end after ending up in the wrong kings palace! Cool Yule thats what I say.

So anyway drop by and see the new look shop, and feel free to bring me some festive cheer – I quite like Hot Chocolate laced with baileys or brandy for my cheer and as a cure to a red nose!

See you in the shop tomorrow!

http://www.lincolncentralmarket.co.uk
Unicorn Tree Books, Central Market, Lincoln. LN5 7ET
http://www.browseawhile.co.uk
http://www.alsarts.co.uk
http://www.lincolnmarket.co.uk

The Bookcase Boogie

OHHH! my arms really ache and I have bruises on my biceps!

Today was long, hassled and hectic as me and minion numero uno did the bookshelf boogie today, that is to say that at 8:30 this morning 7 full sized and dismantled bookcases were delivered, and had to be pieced together whilst at the same time the old pine -My Goodness how many screws did the chippie have to use!!!- units, which were designed by satan himself to confound even the best krypton factor contestant, had to be cleared of books and taken apart.
Was it fun – not after the first 20 minutes! but did it get done?? Yes it did and we even served customers in between – now if you were one of those poor bewildered customers, well my apologies but hey it looks neater now!
So anyway at 4:30 we packed away the tools, removed screwdriver bits from yielding flesh and left a mess of disorganzied sci-fi sitting on new shelves.

So anyway just so you know if you come in tomorrow we will be doing the abc song a lot as we try to reorganize the sci-fi shelves, the historic fiction section and the white – true life (cry Cry) – books, both new and secondhand.
Oh and by the way thats the second rejig and shelf shuttle in just over 2 weeks, as we redid crime and thriller, – it really was miss scarlett in the library with the hammer! – childrens corner and made a whole new section for religious/christian books and lots of space for the communion wafers which came in last week.
It is beginning to look like a bookshop!.

Anyway just to let you all know it is safe to come back in and get some books without too much disruption around you for about the next 2 weeks now, as we won’t be able to do anymore now until we have thoroughly worked out the dimensions of the secondhand department and exactly how to reshuffle it to fit in at least another 3 bays of books!
We just still need more shelf space – lots more books to get in and display nicely so that you, my beloved and adored legions of customers (yes thats you, you twits!) can come along and buy them!

Oh by the way just so you all knows, the first STL order came in today – yay at last, christian books fully on tap and in in a jif!
and we also had a bumper delivery in of criss-cross and codebreaker puzzle books, so hopefully that should please a few of you ( I am going to keep some hidden so i dont get moaned at when they are all gone!).
We are also expecting a giant delivery of paint by numbers and engraving art/scraperfoils in, there are at least 7 new designs ordered and the bumper packs and the acrylic canvasses are absolutely fantastic and will make the best christmas gifts!!

Right that’s it, I am done and need to go relax and uncramp in a bath of radox muscle ease! perhaps with a nice glass of ovaltine or something like that so I am fit and ready for minions, customers and the fray of a friday morning!

Be good all my little frosticles of joy and remember to put the gloves on the radiator as it keeps the fingers warmer! see you in the shop tomorrow.

http://www.lincolncentralmarket.co.uk
Unicorn Tree Books, Central Market, Lincoln. LN5 7ET
http://www.browseawhile.co.uk
http://www.alsarts.co.uk
http://www.lincolnmarket.co.uk