Friday 7 March 2014

Wednesdays - the days of reckoning...




Earlier this week, Mrs Scroblene and I had to visit a well-known DIY store in Tunbridge Wells, as there are a few jobs around the Turrets which have waited far too long (several years in the case of the bath taps, which need a JCB to turn them on and off, and twenty-five years in the case of the porch).

Block and Quayle's emporium differs from the establishment run by Elias Sagtrouser, in that they have displays of floor tiles whereas Elias doesn't bother with such things, preferring to deal with real builders who know what they're talking about!

The telling point of the successful visit, was that we bought exactly what we wanted, and also, because it was a Wednesday, we got a 10% discount because we're over the magical age of 60! That's the policy and the place just heaved with grey hair!

The checkouts all had long queues, so we headed for the self-checkouts with some trepidation... Luckily, there was a very pleasant lady on hand to help, as to a normal person, there was an awful lot of mystery being unraveled on those infernal machines! You need a degree in applied ballistics to work one of those, and while she helpfully rushed from till to till, and popped our bits and pieces through in a flish, I managed to get some light banter going with her, and mentioned how well she was doing as they were all so busy!

Her comment, with a beaming, knowing smile?

"Oh yes, especially on a Wednesday..."!

And the music was all sixties rock music! Good idea that for the greys...

16 comments:

Trubes said...

The last time I was in a well know DIY Superstore, we were looking for wallpaper,
I picked a roll that I liked, then shock horror, all the other rolls cascaded down upon me, to make matters worse, the roll I was looking at slipped out of my grasp and went rolling under the display fixtures spanning several lanes... Ian galloped off to retrieve the rogue roll whilst I tried to restack the shelf! Not a soul came to our aid so DT and I made a hasty exit giggling all the way...

Love di..xx

A K Haart said...

Wednesday is our day of choice for visiting Block and Quayle too.

We get on quite well with the self checkout thingies. Better than sodding Sainsbury's which keeps telling us about unexpected items in the bagging area.

rvi said...

We also do all our shopping during the week - keeping well away from all the mayhem at the superstores, malls etc during the weekends.

The other thing to note about the (us!) grey folk is that most of us know what a screwdriver and a set of spanners is actually for - unlike half of the younger generation of males that I come across that have never heard of a fuse, let alone know how and when to change one!

Sen. C.R.O'Blene said...

Ha ha ha, Trubidoos! Good yarn that!

I hope my wallpapering days are over for the forseeable future too..;0)

Sen. C.R.O'Blene said...

I run a mile from the supermarket self-checkouts, Mr A!

Even this morning it was a trial to get a few spring onions and a bottle of milk, but a nice lady helped us...

Sen. C.R.O'Blene said...

Lunchtime today was a nightmare for some reason! We only have a small store and the car park was full, and not helped by some idiot in a Merc, who seemed to need three spaces...

rvi said...

celoIf narilyScrobs, round our way the multi-cultural females who drive MPVs, vans, CRVs, SUVs etc to the local supermarket never have any problem parking astride the parking demarcation lines. Many of them who clearly have no idea of the size of their vehicles also think the lines down the middle of the roads are for following rigidly...

rvi said...

Sorry, the first 2 words were supposed to be in the prove your not a robot box. Must pop along to the local Specsavers.

rvi said...

"your" - and then it will be time for my remedial English lesson.

Scrobs. said...

You really need a Merc to negotiate the potholes round here, Reevers, but this certain lady in the three-space-Merc had to follow us nearly to our drive - at my legal speed, so she had a bad day after all!

rvi said...

Good on you - these bloody Merc drivers think they own the road..

{Don't wish to blow my own trumpet but} I have been driving Mercs for the past 18+ years - including now. Comfortable, trouble free motoring and you always get a good trade in rate for a new one if you go to a main dealer. Local potholes is of course one of the main reasons - although a Land Rover might be better some times, even on the motorways.

Electro-Kevin said...

A day out on the tiles on a Wednesday afternoon.

Less fun - but safe and sensible and you don't mess up your Sunday.

Scrobs. said...

It had to be you, EK, mentioning the tiles!

There's a lot of bending and scraping to do, so you may as well add that to your next comment!

;0)

Scrobs. said...

Just you go and find that blasted airliner, Reevers, we all want to know where it is!

Don't just piddle about here!

;0)

rvi said...

Where's my mate Joe, the spirit finder when I need him??

The thing that puzzles me about all this is that the military announced it had radar tracked an unidentified aircraft, issuing no ID signals or other usual standard stuff that planes do, crossing the whole width of the Malay peninsular in the middle of the night, without scrambling a couple of interceptors to go and see who it might be. If I had been on duty that night I'd have wanted to now who/what it was - otherwise what is the point of being there in the first place. Do they all knock off at 1730 on Friday and come back 0900 Monday to review the tapes of what had been happening while they were away, effectively leaving Malaysia defenceless meanwhile? For what it is worth I think it was highjacked by somebody who knew about planes and is now somewhere at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. If it was on land somewhere, with all this international hooha going on somebody would have noticed a spare 777 in their back garden by now.



Scrobs (on another PC) said...

Still a huge mystery isn't it!

Where were all the guys with Ipads, staring at planes going overhead, and knowing where they were from, and where they're going!