Lorraine Jones

I'm a friendly person with strong customer service skills. I work well within a team environment or when working alone.

I am currently deputy manager of Benenden's Community Shop, Post Office and Cafe. I have experience in cash handling, stock management, visual merchandising and till operation. I strive to deliver excellent results in customer service, retail and administrative procedures.

I am passionate about books and reading. Each year I set a reading challenge on the Fable app where I am also a member of a book club. Last year I read 30 books and I have the same target for this year. My favourite author is John Steinbeck and I collect early editions of his books, my favourite work being The Red Pony.

I am interested in the current trend for romantasy fiction and have recently read books by Callie Hart and Sarah J. Maas. However, I have a very broad interest in fiction genres, in the past year my reading has included horror (Rhiannon Frater); dark romance (H.D. Carlton), fantasy (V.E. Schwab, Sarah A.Parker) thriller (Lee Child, Catherine Ryan Howard) and murder mystery (Delia Owens). My love for reading started when I was a child when I was never seen without a book in my hand.

• Reading, gaming, walking, yoga and meditation, travelling

My husband and I took a gap year from June 2004 to July 2005 where we travelled throughout southern Africa, South-East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia and North America. I have also travelled in North Africa and Japan.

In September 2006 I stopped working to concentrate on renovating a house, and building up a small-holding at my home in Northumberland. This included growing most of our fruit and vegetables, and looking after our animals: horses, cats, sheep and chickens.

I relocated to Kent in February 2013. In the same year, my husband and I passed through Kent Council's adoption process and we adopted a seven month old boy, who is now 11 years old. My son became my main focus until I started back in work in 2016.