crazyscot

An eventful Saturday.

This morning I went to visit the electrical wholesalers, for the last couple of bits I need for tidying up the shed electrics, then to the PO box (nothing of import) and the supermarket.

This afternoon was scheduled for some of the last bits of the shed painting, until disaster struck: the kettle broke! OMG, oh noes, etc. The lid fixings had sheared, the upshot of which was that the lid wouldn't close, so the steam cut-off wouldn't operate. The priority of doing the painting was rapidly dwarfed by the need to have the ability to reliably summon hot drinks - especially as rustica's term starts on Monday - so we set off to the kettle mine (which looked suspiciously like Noel Leeming). The chap agreed it was a warranty failure and started working through the options... but as it was obsolete (bought 19 months ago), he couldn't authorise a replacement without talking to the service centre on Monday to see precisely which kettle he could replace it with.

48 hours without a kettle?!? In the words of a famous-in-NZ ad campaign, "Yeah, right." But he thought his manager (who was busy helping another customer) could authorise it. Thankfully he could and did, so we returned triumphant with a shiny metallic red kettle. (Somewhat alarmingly, it seems that Russell Hobbs are doing a whole line of brushed metal appliances in vivid colours.)

I observe that having bought a kettle in July 2011 with a tag price of $90, on which we got 50% discount because we were buying nearly $2k of other appliances at the time, we now have a brand new kettle (tag price $150) and a fresh two years warranty. I don't think I'll ever understand retail mark-up...

Melodrama averted, we set about the painting.

Afterwards I was noodling around on FB and one of those sponsored suggested pages (also known as ads) came up in my news feed. Crabbies Ginger Beer NZ. That got my attention. We used to love that stuff; got through a lot of it before emigrating but it wasn't available here.

Inside my head, Picard's voice declared a Red Alert and called for some scans to identify the source of the signature. Some searching revealed that Crabbies have been importing since November last year, and it's available nationwide in Liquorland (a chain of bottle shops).

Picard ordered an away team (of one) to go out in a shuttlecraft (which looked suspiciously like our car) to the asteroid (bottle shop) suspected to contain the precious dilithium ore. I tore out of the house, muttering cryptic mutterings to C, who was still working in the garden at the time.

The chaps in the bottle store were slightly surprised to see a punter walk in, look around, make a bee line for the Crabbies, then pick up an entire case of the stuff. (Seems it normally sells in single bottles.) They scratched their heads for a second over promotional pricing, then asked me for ID. That made my week :-D

When I got back I called rustica over and opened the boot. Her jaw dropped :)

But having responded to an ad (and how!), having demonstrated I am sliding into a certain target demographic - I feel a bit dirty now.

Coming to the end of a week off, I find myself wanting to post something but not sure exactly what. ( So here are some random witterings, as a memory jog for myself. )