Garden Centres - Is It Just Me ?

Well, sometimes such people can be an "oasis of rest" Three years ago, my sister who lives in Shropshire rang her brother, (me), in Cheshire asking me to take her to a Pub for a meal. She'd suddenly remembered going to the particular Pub decades ago with her late Husband and wanted to go again. So I picked her and drove off into the wilds of Shropshire looking for the Pub, and finding it, in we went.
Let's call it an "old fashioned"50's type country Pub inside. So I went to the bar, and not looking at the Menu's they were covered in Christmas decorations and my sister guessed they would be serving the same meals as before, I ordered the meals and drink and distracted by my sister's "settling in" missed how much it would cost but reached for my Debit Card. I was about to give it to the Barman/Owner but froze when he fixed me with a stare and said "No cards, only cash". So, there I am stuck in a strange country Pub, not knowing how much the meals and drinks cost, and being told my Card was just plastic. To be honest, I didn't know how much, if any, money I had in my wallet but found two £20 and one £10 note.
Proferring the Notes the Barman looked at me if I was mentally challenged and plucked a £20 Note from my fingers. I waited, in case there was any change and there was......£7.50p......Naah, never, not for two Steak, Chips and all the trimmings, two Apple Pie and cream, an Orange Juice for my sister and a pint of Mild for me. I risked asking "is that right?" and he looked at me while downgrading me to the Village idiot and nodded.
We've been going there now for nearly 3 years, the Barman/owner and I are great friends, we shake hands when he serves me a superb pint of dark Mild and the meals are home cooked by his Wife and to "die for" He tells me he takes only cash, does all his own finances, only uses the landline to order Beer from the local brewery (he's Free House), gets all his other foodstuffs from the local farms and has trouble squeezing customers in over the weekends. He wouldn't thank me if I gave him a computer, told him it would be good for his business if he bought online or permitted the use of Cards, as he says, more Banks, more online, more plastic, more cost.

 

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Our favourite local nursery is very busy from late March until October and reasonably busy for most other times. They give advice to their customers and won't sell you a plant in early Spring if it needs protection and you don't have somewhere to keep it. They will tell you when to come back to buy it.

Although we propagate most of our own plants we go there reasonably regularly to buy very young plants that are not worth the effort of us growing them. Those are normally sold at 80p per pot but they usually give us 20% discount as it's for charity. They also, now, give us special prices on things like Euphorbias and Erysimum as we don't have enough time to grow the quantity that we can sell - although we still grow some of our own. I see that they are currently selling pansies and violas at 40p.

When we go there they usually have a queue of people at the cash desk and every seems to have at least one full flatbed trolley of plants. They have one person at their single till and another who works through the trolley calling out the plants and prices. That person also questions them about any of their purchases that may be awkward to grow and tells them whether they need to be under shelter for x weeks or months.