The benefits of compost worms

The regular drinks of worm tea are definitely very beneficial to some of my plants.

The azaleas and pieris japonica had both flowered profusely all through spring. It is now barely autumn and they are just starting to flower again.

The lilies not only have incredibly large blooms, but their scent is absolutely heavenly.

This is the largest flower I have ever seen on my peace lily.

The anthurium is just bringing forth one flower after another.

The agony of acquiring a new bed

The day the handyman was here with his trailer to take my old (marital) bed - and other things - to a garage sale, was the day the new bed I had purchased from Harvey Norman was supposed to be delivered.
When I hadn't heard anything by lunchtime, I rang up and to my horror, heard that my bed had not made it onto the truck!
Since deliveries to my area only happen on Wednesdays, it meant I was going to have to wait another week. I had no hope of getting the old bed to  be disposed of any other time, so went ahead with the plans for the day.
I had the handyman put my very old, expandable slat bed into the bedroom to sleep on for the week.

That was quite OK for the week.
Wednesday, February 25th arrived and before I got too excited about folding things up and carrying them out to the spare room in the backyard, I rang again and made sure that this time, my bed would be on the truck, which I was assured it was.

I got very busy moving everything but the slat base and scrubbing the bedroom thoroughly in anticipation of a new bed.

The truck got here around four thirty and the two men started carrying  three large and unwieldy flat packs and a well wrapped up big slat base in and immediately informed me that unpacking and setting up was not part of their job description. There was also no sign of a mattress!!!

I was absolutely floored by the lousy service - or rather lack thereof.
Where I come from, beds come naturally with mattresses, as did the last one I purchased in this country. Whatever happened to the customer being King?

I left the handyman a message with my rather desperate request and also rang Harvey Norman to let them know that I was definitely not amused. The girl on the phone said she could pass the message on to the manager and have him get in touch with me. I told her that unless he had plenty of spare muscles and a suitable mattress, he need not bother himself.
The man still rang up a while later and as good as told me that it was all my fault, that I should have known......blablabla! My suggestions that the staff could be trained to give the customer all relevant information and perhaps ask if a mattress might be needed  (or indeed even bedding, as all of that is available in the shop) fell on deaf ears as the self-righteous little man was too hell bent on playing the blame game.

While waiting for the handyman who couldn't come until evening, I busied myself unpacking the two smaller packs and stacking the pieces ready for assembly. I had to stop at the largest box as that contained the bed head which wouldn't even look at me when I tried to lift it out of the packaging.


Well, it took three hours to assemble the bed.
By the time it was all done, it was half past ten and I was absolutely dead on my feet, having no wish to go out the back and retrieve the other mattress and make up a bed for the night.

I spent the night on my perfectly good reclining sofa, which, when I purchased it from Freedom Furniture a couple of years ago was delivered on a Saturday afternoon and assembled and all I had to do was sit on it and relax.

Whilst it is a perfectly good reclining sofa, spending the entire night on it still left me somewhat worse for wear and a bit sore.

However, it was now Thursday, the day to go to Rotary. I stopped at the Mattress Junction in Margate where I spent a mere 15 minutes choosing and purchasing a mattress and arrange for it to be delivered that very afternoon.

Three hours later, I arrived home after Rotary at the same time as the delivery man with his ute. He not only unpacked the mattress and placed it on the bed for me, but he gathered up all the packaging and took it away with him!

I quickly made up the bed so I would have somewhere a bit more comfortable to sleep when I came home from watching The Second Best Marigold Hotel together with the other 400 Rotarians.

What bliss to come home to this at last!