Although yesterday I was physically assaulted by someone I was trying to remove from the shop. But that's another story...

So on Saturday we were having a laugh with these two kids. We were letting them play with a xylophone someone had donated. They were sitting on the sofa, messing with the xylophone, when in came Old Woman. She told them to get off the sofa so she could sit down. They were alarmed, but did as they were told. They continued to play and she told them to stop making noise. The volunteer told her that she couldn't talk to them like that. She started to berate the volunteer. I came out from the back room and told her that she couldn't talk to people like that in my shop. She poked me in the shoulder and told me not to talk to her that way. I told her to get out. She said no. I said I would call the police. She said I couldn't make her leave. She stood up and walked over to the middle of the shop, shouting at me and calling me, well, rude names. I told her to get out of my shop and she said 'it's not your fucking shop', and she went for me.
I'm not sure exactly what she was trying to achieve, but she sort of flailed at my face and tried to pull my glasses off. I told the others to take the children into the back room and call the police. One of the volunteers restrained her by holding her wrists and she kicked the volunteer.
Eventually we managed to get her out onto the street. She went under the canopy of the Italian restaurant next door (where some unfortunate tourists were trying to eat their early bird specials) and shouted about how I was trying to rob her and how I robbed poor people and so on. Myself and Bloke (who also volunteers in the shop) just stood at the door to make sure she didn't come back in. The Italian restaurant owner had to get his staff to come out and move her on as well. After a while, she wandered off, still shouting insults at me all the way up the street.
When she had left, I came back inside to make sure that the kids were okay. They wanted to know if they could play with the xylophone again. As they were leaving I said to them 'well, it beats being dragged around stupid clothes shops, eh?' and the older one said 'you got that right'.
I do feel a bit bad about getting into a fight with a mad old woman, but from the way she launched herself at me, I could tell that she must have been a right mental case in her younger days, and I'd say it's not the first fight she's started.
And now I'm off to work.

On the other hand, I have just unearthed a lovely box of old Penguins, so that's me happy for the next half an hour.

Also all the volunteers who were there rang up the shop the next day to make sure I was alright. Which was really nice.

Me too. It is one of the things that I fear most. I hate the idea of being so lacking in awareness that I have no idea (or don't care) that my behaviour is driving off everyone around me.

I think I'd prefer to settle for Bloke's image of me in the future. He sees me as 120 Cat Lady, who pays local kids to mow her lawn and is a bit crazy but basically nice.

Retiring. Wow, Pepe, you are living the dream now.

(I do my bookshopping in antiquarian bookshops, whose proprietors are numbered amongst the world's politest shopkeepers.)

I'm glad you didn't get hurt, monkey.

I have shopped, in Monkey's shop!

Old Lady Update: she has not been back and we think that she won't be. So we sort of win.

Thanks everyone for your kind words. To be honest, I was kind of worried about it and thought about it a lot until I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend of going to shows and hanging out with my comedy mates. Hooray!

Hilariously, my shop was robbed on Friday afternoon, which was a bit upsetting since we'd had a really excellent week for donations which was translating into a really excellent week for sales. So my worry now is that he'll think we always have that kind of money in the shop, and we'll become a target.

Anyway, that's not the funny part. The funny part is that there were three huge Gards standing around outside my shop, when who comes along to see what the commotion is? That's right. Mental aul' one.

I just stood behind the till thinking yeah, you come on in. I want someone to get arrested today, might as well be you. But she didn't. Bah.

But it is promising, the donations.

Also the gig went really well in Kilkenny yesterday. Eighty people there, and the comics all had a great time. Brilliant.