Angell Pets Gloucester pet shop has been in business since 2009. In that time there have been several changes made, all to suit our customers, staff, business growth and in one case our landlord. For the first time we are going to make a small change just to suit me, although it will be at a time that will have no impact on our customers.

For the past two years, since George left to work in New Zealand and around the world I have been covering the weekends he used to work. This means I have been working seven days a week and five evenings a week without any time off at all (I can’t count Christmas day and boxing day as I still come to the shop to feed and check on the animals). To make matters worse, despite what I try to tell myself, the number that is given as my age is only going up. What I am trying to say, without admitting it is that I am getting older!

Recent events at the shop, such as the all day power failure that resulted in me having to be here until after midnight, planned outages meaning I have had to come in early have just highlighted the fact that there is no more of me to go round. Add to that the other duties on me to maintain the business – distributing leaflets in the morning before the shop opens, delivering customer orders in the evening and I have no time left to do anything at  home or just to have a rest now and then.

So I have decided to make a small change to the opening times to allow myself some time to spend at home maintaining that and to do anything else that needs to be done whilst other businesses are open (such as visit the dentist). I have chosen a time that should not effect any of our customers in the slightest. It is the quietest time in the shop of the whole week, a time we normally use to clean out the mammals (which we can easily do later) and one where we do not receive deliveries from our suppliers.

With immediate effect we will be closing on Monday mornings and not opening until 1pm. This way we can still take orders for delivery on Monday evening as usual. This just allows me some time to myself to do everything that needs to be done outside of work.

Apologies in advance if this causes any inconvenience but we have looked at customer activity in a lot of detail and I don’t think it will effect anyone but me.

Richard Angell