
My grandad passed away almost a year ago at the ripe old age of 93. A good innings as they say. Up until about a year before he died, he lived pretty much independently at a sheltered housing scheme in Lancing. My dad used to do internet shopping for him at Sainsburys. This worked very well until one day, my dad ordered 8 apples. The shopping arrived on time and was unpacked by my grandad's cleaner, she was slightly bemused as to why there were 8 bags of 6 apples, ok, my grandad liked apples but 48 of them?! Turned out that my dad had ordered 8 BAGS of apples. The tenants at the scheme were well fed in apples for the following week and the tale was re-told countless times.
It seems this runs in the family. I blame the genes! I had recently bought 750 8mm pearls for about £8.00 to make a pearly wreath. Turns out, a wreath as large as the one I decided to make, needed ALL those pearls and a few more. I was searching ebay (as you do!) looking for some more pearls and 'Bingo!', a 1000 pearls for, wait for it... £1.29! I couldn't believe my eyes, what an absolute bargain I thought. Such a bargain that I bought 8 lots of 1000 to save the postage. So, I waited anxiously for my pearls to arrive, all excited to finish my wreath. Then one day, a teeny tiny jiffy bag dropped though my letter box. I was confused, I hadn't ordered anything of that size. I ripped open the envelope and was bewildered to find 8 packets, each measuring about 2 inches square FULL of the smallest pearls you can imagine! BUM! Of course, it materialises that the pearls I had purchased were 2mm ones, not 8mm!
Lesson of the day, always read the precise ebay descriptions. Clear as anything, the description read '2mm pearls', SIGH!!
PS, I poured all 8000 pearls into a bowl to photograph them. Second lesson of the day, when returning said 8000 pearls to their pot, be very careful, I think I lost at least 50% when they dropped on the floor!
PPS, you can fully expect to see some teeny tiny pearl related items to appear on the website in the near future!