Other bits and bobs.

One of the things that i find intrinsically interesting about running a retail business, is trying to second guess what is going on in peoples minds and what it is that influences people. Having had BM for a good few years now, i’ve got plenty of stuff to look back on and the things that alter and even more the things that stay the same, completely fascinate me.

For example, May is always utterly awful on BM; i assume that people are either outside, if it is nice or trying to make their kids concentrate on exams and SATS. It normally picks up at the end, for half term, but the bit between normally excellent April (rubbish this year as Easter was early) and the end are extremely unpleasant and this year has felt even gloopier than normal. I’ve had uncomfortable moments.

But i find these graphs just amazing….

These are the weekly sales levels for the weeks in May 2007

And these are the same weeks for May 2008

I mean, is it me, or is that frankly weird? How can several 100 peoples shopping habits add up to something that similar over 2 months in a year?????

I am very chuffed that PM has met my sales level (outside Xmas months) that i wanted it to be achieving when it had been going for a year, 3 months early. It hardly takes any sales from BM either, it doesn’t seem to impact on it, so i’m very pleased about that. I love it when i manage to predict something realistically and then exceed it.

In home stuff…..

I’m thinking about getting a science and geography curriculum for the big 2 girls… we aren’t quite getting it with Sonlight somehow, the book bit is fine, the science bit is not so much for us. Any suggestions?

Maddy learned to do handstands into forward rolls in the garden today; she is funny, when i described it, she just couldn’t do it but after i got her to stand up and slowly roll forward into a ball so she could feel how her back needed to go, she was perfect and did some great ones. Fran is getting to be very good at round offs, which she showed off royally at R and E’s party (DAMN, i KNEW i forgot something in the blog below!) but it is good to see Maddy getting into doing some things that need some control.

Maddy and Fran have started learning the parts from “The Bluebird” the play that is quoted in Ballet Shoes and which Pauline and Petrova act the main parts of. They rather like it 🙂

I swear i didn’t make them pose 😆

Amelie insists a put a pic of her Beedibie “on blog” as she calls it.

And this is the family challenge dinner. If there had been Liver for me, and a glass of milk for Fran, it would have been even more threatening. Who knew a grill up could have so many hated components for one family??!?!!?!?