Dominique here today! Last week was extremely busy and we spent Saturday having a general tidy up. We had a helping hand from Kathryn, one of our volunteers. She spent a good few hours ironing all the red clothes which had been worn throughout the week, washed, and still slightly damp. I bought a beautiful hat from the charity shop round the corner and my afternoon was taken up painting it red. Teresa painted another hat and she gave her boots another coat of paint which will now take until Christmas to dry, never mind September. We had fun dressing up Kahn, St. John’s security man, in a red hat and tie! On Thursday for the launch, all his colleagues will be joining him in wearing the red accessories.
It was really lovely coming into a tidy shop this morning. We made a brew and had 30 seconds to admire Saturdays hard work, then in walked our first customer. Not only our first customer of the day but the first person also to have an adverse reaction to our shop and our project. Quite an old lady, about 70ish, and quite adamant that our project wasn’t art. She launched her attack and we spent 10 minutes defending ourselves and our opinion of what we think art is. Not good enough an explanation(i don’t think she was even listening), off she stomped, tutting and shaking her head. I don’t think she’ll be back to do the walk. Pity. A breath of fresh air when Celia Cross came in to dress up in red and she looked fantastic, and despite the wet and windy weather, we set off on the walk. We almost made it to the square when we spotted some red things in the window of a charity shop. In we went and came out with two red bags, a red dress and a skirt for me which will look nice with boots in winter. Peter(Mr Cappuccino) seemed in a good mood which is always a bonus. We engaged in conversation with a young man who would be ‘up for wearing red’ if he can find a red Henly’s t-shirt. A lady from Manchester whose car was being serviced came over and asked us why we we’re dressed in red and if she could take a photograph. We asked her if she was interested in doing the red walk and she explained how she never normally comes to Preston but she does go to Bury so she’ll come and see us there. We then went back to the shop and Elaine came with the projector and a big piece of plasticky material to be put up in the window which sounds easy enough. Two hours of smoothing out creases, creating more, smoothing them out, creating more….. and eventually, we sort of got there. We shall finish it off tomorrow as we had to leave before the gates to the centre were closed and we were locked in.
