Reasons to be CHEERFUL..... 1 2 3....!!! Whatever is making you HAPPY today..!!

Well, don't wear the orange one again.

 

I may have a spare ferret for you.

 

That's interesting. Is it a telematics box? I thought Michelin had finished their trials and were now installing them in fleet vehicles to help save on tyre wear and fuel consumption. I didn't think they were paying people to put them in.

 

Hi Sue,

I've only just come across this latest post . What a coincidence! I was looking at your blog only half an hour ago (got it in my Favourites). I don't get much time to look but I love your writings.

 

Here's this year's 'Reasons to be cheerful...'

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/reasons-to-be-cheerful.91347/page-2#post-924326

 

My current reason to be cheerful started out as me being a grumpy old man.

I usually have two pairs of long handled lawn shears. The old one is used for cutting new lawn edges by cutting through the soil instead of using a spade and the newer one is used for just cutting the grass edges.

The old one (at least 30 or 40 years old) is no longer serviceable so the newer one has progressed to cutting through the soil and, now, isn't quite good enough for cutting the grass edges. Longer grass just bends instead of being cut properly.

So I shopped around for a new set. As we've always had Wilkinson Sword I looked for those. The Range had them on offer at £19.99 instead of the retail price of £34.99. So, feeling pleased with myself, I bought them.

When I got them home Mrs Shiney said she'll have a go with them but didn't even get started! The handles were too big for her to get her hands round them properly. So I tried. Even with my big hands I found them uncomfortable as it's always easier if you can close your hands completely around the handle. Especially if you need to use them for hours at a time (we have almost a couple of thousand foot of edging).

These are the two pairs. You can see the difference in thickness of the handles. When I first saw the new ones I thought that they looked good because they had finger grips. The handles are made of a fairly solid compound which also was not all that comfortable. Whereas the old ones had a soft material (they called it soft-grip) that were very comfortable.



So, feeling disgruntled, I phoned Wilkinson. My problem was handled by a very pleasant woman who, when I asked where I can get a pair of the old model, told me the situation.

Apparently, the Wilkinson garden implement manufacturing has been farmed out for many years and the phone number I had used got me through to the current manufacturers, who had been making them for the last four years.

The shears that I wanted were not made by them so she couldn't help me, but she very kindly told me who had been manufacturing them when I had bought the last pair. She said that they were made by Fiskar and were still being made by them.

So I took the shears back to The Range and had a chat with the customer man there. He handled the situation superbly. He said he would be happy to refund my money but he didn't know whether they sold Fiskar products. So he put out a message for someone from gardening, who turned up within two minutes.

She said she doesn't think they sell them but said she would take me to where all the shears were - and there they were! She was rather surprised and asked another member of staff who told her they had just come in as a new line for them They were priced at £29.99 but I was happy to pay an extra £10 to get what I wanted.

So back to customer services with a smile on my face. The smile became even bigger when he scanned the bar code and found that they had a special discount of £15.

One happy customer leaving the shop with the shears I wanted and a fiver in my pocket.

Well done to both Wilkinson and The Range customer services.