POGGY Post Office is such a lovely, friendly post office I’ve always thought. It’s our go-to for cards and wrap and gifts. And now it has a lovely swanky little coffee shop in it.
The owner Steve says he’s having a ‘soft launch’ – ie no ribbon-cutting, no bells and whistles, because he wants to see what works and what doesn’t – sort of a trial run.
I think, as he’s selling hot chocolates with optional slug of Bailey’s in it and cake and seasonal speciality coffees, it’s going to work very well.
Can you believe it is the Book Vault on Market Street’s fifth anniversary this month?
They set up just before Covid, a dream come true for Ivy the owner who had always wanted a book shop and all the mightiest forces were against her.
But it survived and flourished. So a party is in order. On Saturday 14th do come down to the shop.
I’ll be there flogging my wares at ten, signing books and giving stuff away if you buy one of my novels. Books really do make a lovely present and there’s plenty to choose from there.
It’s been a year since mum died, the anniversary was at the weekend – St Andrew’s Day. It’s both flown and dragged, maybe because I haven’t really worked my way through the grieving process yet, I’ve been too angry as many of you know.
But also, at the same time, the completion of her house went through and if my head wasn’t already cabbaged, it was by the end of Monday. It is a dreadful duty selling a family home.
It is bad enough getting rid of the things in the house, the items that were treasures to the people living in them but to no one else.
That’s why I’ve told my lads when anything happens to me, it doesn’t matter that they won’t feel the same about my collection of paper punches as I did, they were MY precious things, as my dad’s cassettes were to him and my mum’s Blue Mountain pottery and glass vases from holidays in Spain were to her.
But letting go of the building is another ball game.
Especially as we were the only family – until now – to ever live in the house. And there are almost fifty years of memories within the walls. Me as a young girl, my grandparents having their golden wedding celebrations there, my mum and dad having their diamond anniversary.
Friends, parties, Christmases, my budgie who couldn’t fly. The first house we’d had with central heating which was blissful when you’d come from a freezing terraced with single glass-pane windows.
Our first garden. Getting ready for my first date with a lad who worked on Jack Fulton’s stall – oh my that giddy Christmas.
Even though I left it, it was still always home. Bringing my babies there, dropping them off so they could help dad cut the lawn, following him round with their own little toy lawn mowers.
It feels like a death all over again. The end of a blessed era, the final bye bye to our little family of three where I was the daughter.
Of course, I couldn’t afford to keep it as a shrine. It’s bad enough paying full council tax on an empty house, but then they slap an extra penalty on you (thank you, Barnsley Council for helping me there, credit where it’s due). But it needs to be lived in and loved, as we loved it.
And now it will be. But it half-killed me to let go. And it will be a long time before I’ll be able to walk past it, knowing it’s not MY family home any more.
