The sun had not quite broken over the cliff when I took the girls out first thing. There was just enough beach to cavort upon, so we headed down the slip which is far easier that dragging them down the road. If the tide is fully in, there are alright about avoiding the beach but if they can see a sliver of sand, they are most insistent that they go down.

We did not tarry long, I had places to go and drinks to see and was keen to get started. What I should have done is started much earlier as I was caught out just at the end of doing the soft drinks by the arrival of the cash and carry delivery. I had checked the tracker for the first time that had told me the van would arrive at ten minutes to eight o’clock. I thought it a useful addition to the service until the van turned up half an hour earlier.

We carried out the usual, efficient unload of a delivery that was a fair bit larger than the delivery we had last time. I had ramped that up on the expectation of a marked increase in business and for this order ramped up some more. Judging from the business we had yesterday, it was still going to be too small. 

I must say that it certainly did not feel that small after we finished bringing it in. It was piled high and precariously, the full length of the store room with only just enough room to squeeze down one side. There was no time to be concerned about the stability of the piles because hot the heels of the cash and carry delivery came the newspapers and the greengrocery. Most of the latter could go straight out but there were a few items that needed weighing and pricing. Since the top of the freezer where I do the weighing and pricing was loaded with cash and carry goods, they would need to be processed and put out before I could do the greengrocery.

At twenty five minutes past eight o’clock, five minutes before opening, with the newspapers done, the freezer cleared of enough space to finish the greengrocery, and the bread that had arrived first, I suddenly realised that I had not yet topped up the beer fridge. Panic? Certainly not.

I would have been gravely mistaken to think that the helter skelter of the morning was over with the opening of the first electric sliding door in The Cove, although I might be forgiven for thinking so in the first hour as we were reasonably quiet. Then at half past nine o’clock, just as the first serious wave of shoppers appeared, so too did the extra large dairy order I had placed last night. Working between customer visits to the till, it took me the best part of an hour to price and secure all the items in the fridge. It was not helped that after getting my trolley to the end of the shop, I could not get back again because of people in the aisles.

Having boxed off the daily deliveries, I could concentrate on shopkeeping while trying to clear as much of the cash and carry as possible. It was a corker of a morning out there with so much bright sunshine it was hard to imagine a person not wanting to be part of it. I was, as a result, quite hard pressed and there was rather more shopkeeping than there was clearing boxes. It was gone eleven o’clock before there was enough of a break in the traffic to go and get a quick cup of tea.

We stayed busy until well into the afternoon although it was a little more sporadic than the morning’s major rush. I do not think that the beach was as busy as yesterday; the camps thinned out a bit as they went towards and past the Lifeguard huts. Maybe it was the cloud that put them off. Our bright and sunny morning paled a bit from the middle of the day as cloud either filtered the sun or blocked it out altogether. It was combined today with a bit of a breeze from the northwest which might have taken the edge off the temperature a bit. I suspect those camped out on the beach were not minded to care very much.

As the afternoon pressed on, we started to see some more arrivals, many with familiar faces, which is always pleasant – like seeing old friends. It reawakens my conversational mode, which can be eroded as I tire towards the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes others get caught in the crossfire such as the young lady who came to the counter purchasing postcard. I asked her if she had warm hands and I must commend her wit and presence of mind because she responded immediately, ‘not at the moment’. I very quickly pointed to her sweatshirt, before she thought me any more of a complete eejit than she did already, and its legend that said, Cold Heart. She mentioned that her uncle had said something similar which told me that she thought that age might be a factor at play. The very cheek of it, but touché.

In the last couple of hours of opening I had enough leeway to do a few more boxes of this and that from the cash and carry delivery. I had not made much of an impact on it but the Missus, who now looks like she constitutes the night shift, said that she would power through it in the evening. I had no doubt that she would.

Except she did not. By the time we had some tea, it was too late to consider probably two hour’s work in the shop. She said she would get up early, which I doubted, to do it then. Our ideas of early tend to differ in somewhat extreme ways.

When it came to take the girls out last thing, The Cove was a completely different place to the evening before. Gone were the crowds and our end was practically deserted. There was no aftermath of a spectacular sunset as the cloud had thickened a bit. At the end of the shop day it was still fairly bright, but the cloud was gathering then. The Harbour wall was lined with jumpers and there was still plenty of activity in the Harbour. They had all clearly thought better of hanging about later on. Not without cause, so did I and promptly went to bed.