What a day!

Today has been fairly intense - not a bad day, by any means, just intense!

I woke early (again) and went downstairs at 6am to make a coffee and watch the news. After ten minutes I checked Facebook and saw that I'd had a message from Ginny who runs another play centre in Northampton. Apparently, last night, our new rivals had posted messages trying to get their customers to arrive by bus or taxi and offering a whole host of incentives to stop people getting to their place by car, as obviously the parking is proving to be a huge problem (as we predicted). This prompted a storm of angry comments which Ginny had alerted me to.

I spent a good half hour reading over 130 comments from their FB followers and I have to admit if it was my business I would be distraught about what people were saying. Facebook is certainly a good way of achieving publicity but it can also work against a new business.

I went into work early and did the tills, opened up and was sweeping up the car park when Mum and Dad arrived for work. Naturally they were very interested to hear about the comments on Facebook and we wondered what would happen next with the parking...double yellow lines to stop people leaving their cars all along the road?

At 9am Keith came into work and we drove to Audi to talk about getting a new car. The A4 I'd driven on Saturday was looking a better prospect and we had another look at it before we saw Tim and went inside for a chat (and more delicious coffee!). To cut an extremely long story short, and after much haggling and gnashing of teeth, the A4 is now mine (or will be on Monday!).

The new car!

I am mightily relieved, to be honest. I've enjoyed having my little A1 but I haven't been in love with the car and the size and lack of doors is now becoming a real problem. It was not a totally enjoyable process haggling for the new car but it's all done now and I can look forward to taking delivery of it next week.

We dashed back to work and then Keith left to go and pick Sophie up from her friend's house. She sounded a wee bit hungover on the phone after her party/sleepover so I was glad she was going home to rest and recuperate!

The afternoon was spent getting ready for Halloween at work tomorrow and trying to find small gifts for the children that we hope will turn up in Fancy Dress. In the end we decided to give anyone who dresses up a party bag and we bought little mini diaries for any adults that are brave enough to come as witches or Draculas!

Back at work we were busy and the noise level was very loud. There were emails flying backwards and forwards between Ginny, the Planning Officer and ourselves and I just wanted to go somewhere quiet and lie down for a few hours! I called Sophie about going to the gym only to find that she was asleep so I decided, regretfully, to leave working out for tonight and go home to get some peace and quiet!

When I arrived home I opened a letter to discover that someone had tried to take out a new mobile phone in my name and that I had a bill of £51!! It took Keith and I an hour to sort it all out on the phone, which I hope is the end of it. Luckily they didn't have my bank details so that was a relief but it wasn't quite the relaxing end to the day I'd hoped for!