Support your local businesses...

I tried locally to buy a coal scuttle today.  What a waste of time that was.  I'm a great believer in supporting our local businesses so I popped out to a local store, a specialist fire supplier.  The response there was, "We get a lot of people asking for those at this time of the year.  We don't keep many and there are none left".  I bit my tongue from giving the obvious response.  About 4 miles up the road I tried again at a DIY chain store.  Their response was, "We have them in stock at Teesside (about 35 miles away)".  10 miles down the road at Durham City I know of a fire/coal supplier so I rang him before I set off.  Three calls and 2 hours later I was still getting an answer machine.  "Sorry we're very busy"….  I went onto their website and Google advised, "This site may be hacked"!

I've now ordered it on-line from a place in Yorkshire and it'll be here tomorrow afternoon.  I could have saved myself 1.5 gallons of diesel and 3 hours of driving but I wanted to help my local businesses.  Sod 'em - they don't deserve it.

The photo today sums it up.  Team Valley Retail Park outside of Homebase.