New tape measure - odd 'feature'

[Adrian]

Ain't that the truth! (Esp Lidl / Aldi !)

That bit doesn't bother me - it also has their phone no on it in big print - so it actually could be helpful if I'm half-way through some job or other and need some more widgets

They're a great source of 'bits' - proper farmers' supplier. Had to construct a little 'log trailer' to go behind the garden tractor last summer - they had some excellent little pneumatic wheels, and a shed-full of stout round metal bar 'in the yard' and were happy to cut off just the right amount to make me an axle. They and the other 'Builders' Provider' will also sell you a short length of copper pipe or

2ft6inches of UPVC fascia, if that takes your fancy...

Very helpful

Adrian - West Cork, Ireland

[Owain]

Do they also sell potatoes, beer, and postage stamps?

Owain

[Adrian]

Probably, no and no - in that order

From the outside it looks like a bog-standard department store - but it's when you get to the desk at the back with the customers in wellies and old waistcoats that the real fun starts

Adrian

[Neil]

"forkandles" ? :)

[fictitious]

" Got Any Ose?"

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian saying something like:

Yup. There was one like that near me and it moved into a modern custom-built shed a few years ago. The old premises were wonderful; cramped and stuffed full of items with old prices on some of them - bargains galore if you got lucky. When they moved to their new place they turfed out half the stock of the old one and it's just not the same. Still got a very useful cross-section of widgets, but it misses out on the really obscure stuff.