Rain Stopped Play

Due to the fact that a small monsoon seemed to have parked itself over southern Essex this morning I gave up on the idea of blackberrying and contented myself with picking in a few apples from one of the trees in the garden instead.  I got quite wet enough just being outside the back door for a minute or two, I certainly wasn't going to venture any further in pursuit of fruit - free or otherwise.  The apples have now been stewed up and will no doubt be a tasty enough pudding with another dollop of clotted cream on top - although P may be very virtuous and have his 'au naturel.'  Perhaps I'll have another attempt at blackberrying tomorrow.

The British Heart Foundation were collecting house to house this morning and luckily they'd picked up the four bin bags of books I'd left out for them before the heavens opened.  Their information said to leave donations outside the house by 8.30 am but I had a feeling they tended to be on the early side so my bags went out at 7.45 am.  Sure enough, before ten past eight they were out there loading them into their van.  I'm very grateful that they agree to take books as so many other charity collections only want to take clothing, but I do wonder how many donations they missed out on by arriving earlier than people expect.  I'm just glad I've now got a LOT more space in the shed - although no doubt 'stuff' will quickly be deposited in there again.

I did donate some clothing as well and have also listed a few items I no longer wear on ebay.  I seem to have accumulated A LOT of 'stuff' (clothes and other things) these past few months - probably because of all the car boot sales I've been to recently, and I'm going to try and list as much as possible on ebay to a) clear a bit of space and b) make a bit of extra money.

I used to do a lot of second-hand book selling on Amazon but it gets harder and harder to find books to sell on at a decent price.  Even when things have been listed they often subsequently get taken off again when the prices drop so low it's no longer worth trying to sell them.  Hence why I'd managed to accumulate so many books to donate.  At one time I used to earn approx. £50 per week selling on Amazon, these days I'd be lucky to make £50 per month - and I've definitely noticed the drop in my income.  Ebay, for me, still seems to be a steady place to sell - some things fetch excellent prices, others not so - but one thing's for certain, if I don't list items for sale I sure as hell won't sell them.  Yup, time to get my 'ebay seller' hat on.

Comments

[Jennifer]

Glad you were able to clear a bit of space, so sorry about the tremendous amount of rain. I think psyching yourself up to list things for sale is the hardest part of it. Perhaps a good cup of tea would help.

[Caroline]

Good luck with your sales, Elizabeth. After a very slow start to September, I've found things have picked up this week, and am selling at reasonable prices again.