Saturday 23rd February
Lord, but for a day off, I've been really quite busy. All the usual stuff - washing, tidying - ha, don't seem to do much of that, but what the heck, today I went round picking stuff up. It's not my favourite occupation, but if you don't do it, you suffer. And of course, needless to say, I'd just made dinner, and came back into the living room to sit down and eat when I switched the light on and pop, there goes the bulb. So I had one of my least favourite tasks in the world, change the light bulb.
I don't know about you, but the only steps I have for this are about two steps too short. I have to climb up, stretch up full length, and reach above my head to grasp the bulb and release it, go back down the steps and come back up with the new one. I know exactly how stupid a situation this is - all the more so since I suffer from more than a touch of vertigo, but they're the only steps I've got, and it's a question of yes, I know I should buy new one's but it's an expensive thing to do for really not much use. (They aren't really my steps either, they're the landlords, for the use of the house.) It's one of those old Victorian houses, with very high ceilings. Anyhow, I did make it up and down there with no ill effect. And I suppose there's an argument that because I know it's not a good thing to be doing, that I'm extra careful when I do it. A care that I might not take if the steps were longer and more secure. I also have this feeling that if they did start to wobble, I'm not that far off the ground, and I could leap clear with a single bound, which I wouldn't be able to if I was further up on a longer ladder.
Anyway, I'm doing well with my allotted weekend task of making more bagcharms for the shop. I've had a very good month, and I need to re-stock a bit, so I've been busy making new charms - here are a few photo's.
These are only three of them - left to right they're a pink and plum crackleglass bagcharm, a purple and clear crackleglass bagcharm, and a peach and sage green facetted glass bagcharm. They'll all be going on sale over the next week or so, in my Ebay shop.
So what else have I been up to? I had a bit of run-in with one of the customer service staff at Sainsbury's. I felt quite cross about it - I had bought two jars of coffee that I thought were on a special offer of two for £6.00, but they charged me over £10.00 for them. So I complained at the customer service desk, in a way that I thought was polite and friendly. And we'd set off to look at the shelf in all amity I had felt - turned out when we got there, that they'd stuck a whacking great tray of extra large jars in the middle of the two sizes of jar included in the offer. She was fine about letting me change my big jar for another of the smaller ones, but didn't seem to like it when I suggested that this had been done deliberately so people would pick up the larger jar by accident, and spend more money than they intended to. Frankly I do think that that's what they'd done, and I absolutely accept that this wasn't done by the woman I was speaking to. I made a point of saying I know this isn't anything to do with you, but nevertheless, she still got the hump. Essentially it's cheating though, the management of the store felt that because people don't check their receipts until they get home, that people won't notice, either that, or they'll simply accept it as being something they can't do anything about. But you can, and you can complain about it, God knows the supermarkets are expensive enough right now without being conned into spending more money than you want to because they've shelved stuff in a tricksy manner to con you into thinking everything on the shelf is included in the offer. Stand up for your right to pay what you choose to!
Mind you, my customer service best of the week - if I did such a thing, which I don't would go to Amazon this week. They did what they promised, and got my new books to me by the time they promised. It's an expensive thing to do, but I was out of stuff to read - new books that is, and I fancied a couple of books that I'd seen, so I ordered them on Friday, and yes, they turned up about half past nine this morning. Excellent work. And talking of the books, I'm going back to them - haven't been able to put the first one down. It's Christopher Hibberts biography of Queen Victoria, I bought it with his biography of Edward VII too. Do you know, I've never read a biography of Edward? I was quite shocked to discover that, although admittedly he's been a secondary character in a fairly large number of books that I have read! Anyhow, enough for now, I'm off to finish off the washing up and get back to the books.
