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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · 1d ago
We have someone who regularly donates 6 boxes of books every time he comes in. I think he has been doing this since September / October last year, and apparently he does house clearances, which explains where all the books are coming from, and what sorts of books we get. There are often a lot of children's books included, which seems to indicate grandparents with shelves of books for when their grandchildren visit. Generally his donations are sorted into roughly 1/3 to us for processing, 1/3 to the warehouse as potential donations, and 1/3 to the warehouse for ragging. He's obviously just had his Gift Aid sales email from St Richard's Hospice, as he told one of my fellow volunteers that he has raised over £1,700 in Gift Aid sales. That's absolutely amazing, and very good to know from the point of view of sorting the books. He is a gold mine! #CharityShopLife #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Apr 20, 2026
Huge amounts of book donations today - we had 24 boxes and bags of books in, which I just managed to sort through in the afternoon, resulting in 295 books to the warehouse as donations, 158 books to the warehouse for ragging and 202 books for processing - 655 books in total. Very happy, but that was about our limit for today, and we can't really take many (or any) books tomorrow until both the delivery van has come and collected everything to go to the warehouse, and some of the remaining books have been processed. #CharityShopLife #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Apr 17, 2026
They're certainly hyping up the opening of Iceland in Droitwich on Tuesday. I wonder what time people will start queuing... https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/26019565.iceland-reveals-plans-droitwich-store-opening-day/ #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Apr 15, 2026
Just activated Follow Requests so that I can check who wants to follow me. The bar is pretty low - just no assholes please. I'm also going through my followers list and weeding out any dead and inactive accounts, as well as the aforementioned assholes. #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Apr 01, 2026
Not sure the cannabis farmer saw the funny side of it, but 1st April brought a raid on the former HSBC building in Droitwich https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/25988107.man-arrested-200-cannabis-plants-found-former-hsbc/ #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Mar 30, 2026
Oops, just been calling my son to get up for college, because I thought the Easter holidays started this Friday - no, they've started! #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Mar 02, 2026
February 2026 Books Read: 17 The Road - Cormac McCarthy No Place To Hide - Rebecca Griffiths Before I Go To Sleep - SJ Watson The Motel - Nancy Savage The Lucky Winners - K L Slater Dust - Arthur Slade Snowdrops - A D Miller *Locker 19 - J Cronshaw The Last Trip - Rowan Chambers The Burning Stones - Antti Tuomainen Containment - Christian Cantrell A Neighbour's Guide To Murder - Louise Candlish The Society Of Unknowable Objects - Gareth Brown The Never Game - Jeffery Deaver The Life Of Chuck - Stephen King The Martian - Andy Weir Reacher: Killing Floor - Lee Child Did Not Finish: Island Builder - Andrew Karevik 2084 - Mason Engel *Locker 19 by J Cronshaw was the first book that I began to suspect was AI generated part way through, and read to the end to confirm my suspicions. #2026Books #AmReading #HK72Posts #HK72Books
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 26, 2026
Yesterday I really wanted a cheese sandwich, despite knowing that it would trash my saturated fat stats for the day. It was lovely, but two slices of bread, margarine, and 93g of cheddar cheese came in at 650 kcals, and a huge 22.3 g of saturated fat - daily limit for women is 20g. It was great for calcium levels - at 777mg, and explains why I used to rely on cheese as a good source of calcium. That was before I started to worry about cholesterol, though. #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 25, 2026
Monday's book donations were fairly typical in volume, but heavily skewed towards books needing to be ragged and books to go to the warehouse as donations. We kept 96 books for processing, and sent 154 books to the warehouse as donations, and 181 books for ragging. It took most of the afternoon to sort through all of them, and it was irritating that people had donated over 180 books that were in poor enough condition that the best outcome is that we can get a few pence per kilo for them as ragged books, rather than going into the bin and costing money to dispose of - which is what might happen to some of them. #CharityShopLife #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 25, 2026
The boxes of books to go to the warehouse were collected last Thursday, so by Monday we were back to normal with book donations, and donations in general. We had just over 50 boxes and bags donated on Monday, which is par for the course. Over the course of a week, we probably get at least 300-350 donations in, which is why we can get clogged up at time, and can't take any more in. When we're that full, we can't "just store it somewhere," because we have already used up all our storage space. We do try to limit the amount of time that we aren't taking in donations, but it is something that happens. #CharityShopLife #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 24, 2026
Now that I've reached the weight that I want to be, I'm looking at maintaining it. I'm using an app because I'm trying to track several metrics. When I was losing weight, the app worked well, not so much for maintaining weight. It overestimates the amount of calories needed for different levels of activity: Sedentary - 1899 kcal, Low Active 30-60 mins moderate activities - 2062 kcal, Active 60-120 mins moderate activities - 2199 kcal, Very Active 120+ mins moderate activity - 2433 kcal. Whereas an online Basal Metabolic calculator has lower amounts: Little to no exercise - 1488 kcal Light exercise 1-3 times per week - 1705 kcal Moderate exercise 3-5 times per week - 1922 kcal Heavy physical exercise 5-6 times per week - 2139 kcal Heavy physical exercise 6-7 times per week - 2357 kcal I think this is intentional, so you become reliant on the app. I do moderate exercise, so have had to put the app level as Sedentary to get the right level of maintenance calories. #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 20, 2026
The stockroom has been tidied to within an inch of its life, and we are busy appreciating it while it lasts. The bags and boxes to go to the clearance shop have gone, and although the boxes of books to go to the warehouse won't be moved until Tuesday, at least they're tidy. The charity's CEO arrived for a short, unannounced visit on Wednesday, and he was very complimentary about how good it looked, which was also very nice. #CharityShopLife #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 17, 2026
As we've got a pause on donations this week, we decided to tidy up and sort out the stockroom shelves, as stuff tends to pile up and they get cluttered. It went really well - we unearthed and packed up a load of random bric-a-brac that can hopefully get sent off to the clearance shop tomorrow, found a lot of kids' toys that can go out straightaway, and discovered that we have even more crockery, puzzles and games than we thought. Now that it's all visible and tidy, it will be a lot easier to find things to put out. #CharityShopLife #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 16, 2026
This week is going to be difficult, as the warehouse is overwhelmed, and we can't accept donations - the only thing they will be collecting from any of our group of shops is culled clothes. Luckily, there haven't been many complaints so far, although one customer was affronted as she is signed up to gift aid, had travelled 10 miles to get into town, and had never needed to phone up before, to check if donations were being accepted. She then wondered if we couldn't "just store them somewhere." If we had anywhere to store them, we wouldn't be rejecting donations! #CharityShopLife #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 13, 2026

After realising that I had unintentionally read an AI-generated thriller on Wednesday, I spent yesterday reviewing the last 30-odd books that I’ve bought, to see if any of them are also AI-generated, and what red flags to look out for.

I checked:

Publication date Publisher Publisher’s website Author’s website Number of books written per year

So far I’ve come to the following conclusions about the “authors”:

  1. Has self-published 8 books in 2025, with virtually identical covers, via a “book publishing company” that’s basically him and his wife. His website is awful, and he didn’t bother editing a large part of the one book I read.

  2. Has self-published 5 books in 2025, with very similar covers, and his website is flagged as suspicious. The two books I read had been edited well enough to read as human-created, and the plots were reasonable, but not altogether credible.

/cont.

#HK72Posts #HK72Books

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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 12, 2026
Yesterday I was reading a thriller when I began to suspect that it had been AI-generated. At first it seemed to be okay, but as I got further into the story there were a few sentences that struck me as odd. Then it went rapidly downhill in the last quarter of the book, with incoherent actions and bizarre sentences becoming more and more frequent. It was not a pleasant experience, and I was pretty upset that I'd managed to buy and read something that was only intended to con people out of money. I decided to confirm my worst fears and looked up the "author" and his books; his website lists 8 books that he published in 2025, and all of them have similar covers. They are also published by a "book publishing company" set up by him and his wife, and they made about £500 in 2024 and 2025 with this scam. #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Feb 02, 2026
January 2026 Books Read: 23 Mickey 7 - Edward Ashton Bullet Train Kotaro Isako Mr Mercedes - Stephen Kings The Night Before Christmas - Maria Frankland Finders Keepers - Stephen King The Winter Visitor - B P Walter The Winter Retreat - Maria Frankland The Woman In The Opposite Window - Rose Hard Friend Request - Laura Marshall Dead Of Winter - Keri Beevis The Life I Had - Aaron Quinn End Of Watch - Stephen King The Christmas Party - Kathryn Croft Everyone Here Is Lying - Shari Lapena Two Truths One Lie - Alex Sinclair Wish - Alexandra Bullen The Perfect Wife - Hannah Price Little Siberia - Antti Tuomainen I Don't Like Mondays - Maria Frankland Seven Bodies - V J Randle You Are Fatally Invited - Ande Pliego Run Away - Harlan Coben Anxious People - Fredrik Backman Currently Reading: Island Builder - Andrew Karevik #2026Books #AmReading #HK72Posts #HK72Books
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Jan 29, 2026
Glanced at my phone sat on my desk, in the charging position, and deciding that it really would help if I got the charger and cable out of the drawer, plugged it in and switched it on.🤦‍♀️ #HK72Posts
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@HollieK72@mastodonapp.uk · Jan 29, 2026
Yesterday someone bought 7 books from our window display on Military History, for a grand total of £22.40. Apparently he lives abroad and needs some books to read - happy to oblige! 📚 #CharityShopLife #HK72Posts
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