Christine thinks I’m getting more like Victor Meldrew every day. I think that being retired gives me more time to think about things. When I was at work I was simply too busy dashing about the country to take notice of most things but now, it’s different.


So here are a couple of issues that are bugging me at the moment.


Shopping in York the other day, we go into Habitat where there’s an "Occasional Table" . I ask if it’s occasionally a table what else does it think it is. Christine just ignores me and carries on looking at the table.
The table is priced at £160, not bad, seems a good deal, I go to the payment counter to be asked for the delivery address. I say "I will take it with me", but they tell me it’s only for home delivery. OK, so I give them my address and they are now calculating a delivery charge starting at a minimum of £40. I explain to the assistant that as I can’t take it home myself and the delivery will cost at least £40 the cost of the table is £200 so why don’t they show that on the ticket. I tell her we don’t want the table at £200 and leave the shop. She has no idea what I’m on about.

Is it me? How do they get away with it?


Our shared Clio, was due for it’s first service, so into Dixons in Hessle it goes. The cost of the service was given to me when I booked it in as £179, on the wall in the offices is a Service Charge Chart which shows the service at £179. Later that day I collect the car, no additional work was done so the service charge will be £179, wrong it’s £189 I have to pay £10 for the disposal of waste material. If I have to pay that, then the service cost is £189.
How do they get away with it? I wonder how much they make charging £10 for waste disposal on each car serviced. Maybe if they see this blog they may give us an answer.


Through the door this morning drops a leaflet, big front page spread “Free Plant”. When you look at it it’s only free if you spend £10, how’s that free?


But sometimes it’s down to us. We got a leaflet from Langlands Garden Centre at Shiptonthorpe offering a half price plant and as we are currently doing the garden we were interested.

Now it’s probably 15 miles to the Garden Centre but they do have the best coffee shop in the area and the scones are excellent, even if I have to share one with Christine. So off we go.
When we get there we find out we can even get a half price tree and as they are more expensive we are saving more money. At this point I try again to explain to Christine the difference between ‘saving money’ and ‘spending less’, but as usual, when I get onto this subject she pretends not to understand and carries on looking at the trees.


We probably needed a tree anyway so Christine selects a very nice looking Flowering Crab Tree, we get it at half price that’s a ‘saving’ of £15. Excellent, but of course it won't fit in the Clio so we pay £10 to have it delivered. We sit in the coffee shop with a scone each (only pensioners share scones and Christine is only 45 you know) discussing what a good bargain that was. Is it me?



I have just received an e-mail referring to Christine’s order with an On-Line order number for the table. It is being delivered next Wednesday. I’ll just go and decorate another bedroom.