The Repair Café.

Lots of sun and the occasional shower today. It would have been a lovely day to go for a walk but I had plans.

Yesterday at Charlie's I made sure to check out the equestrian area as I always do. There I was quite encouraged by seeing a member of staff adding a second reduction on the clothes on sale.

He had already done the upper rail of the smaller sizes, no good to me, and was working his way through a rail of jodhpurs (or riding tights as they are now known). I had a little wander, came back and he was still at the same rail. Picking up a couple of the larger tops that I was interested in I asked him if they were going to be further reduced as well. The man was not helpful and said he wouldn't know until he'd checked with his scanner. When I said I'd come back in a few minutes he grumpily said that it would take him 10-15 minutes to finish the rail he was on (about eight items). Suspecting that he might even go off and do something else before reducing the larger tops I gave it up as a bad job.

Since I had to go into town anyway today I thought I might go back to Charlie's too. The questions were - did he reduce the larger tops? Probably. Would the ones I was looking at still be there? Also probably. And would any of the tops fit? Possibly.

And yes, there they were. Three tops or as the makers like to call them base layers. Two were a trendy and expensive brand and still £25 but the third was warmer, not so tight and reduced from an initial price of £33 down to £15. It's now hanging in my wardrobe.

The main reason I went into town was to take some things to the repair café which was being held at Aberystwyth bandstand. In an attempt to counter the waste caused by our throw away society they repair household electrics, clothes, bikes, toys, woodwork and technology. I saw sewing machines, dolls and vacuum cleaners all being repaired and a table of ladies mending clothes.

I had brought along my hair straighteners which I knew had a faulty connection as I had to jiggle the wire to get the light to turn on. Unfortunately that turned out to be damaged wires too close to the connecting bit so non-repairable and a fire risk. They've gone in the pile to be taken to the recycling centre and I bought some basic straighteners from Tesco's. I only use them to straighten my fringe so no point in going for a fancy model.

The next items were some touch lamps which had stopped working a long time ago. One just needed some cleaning and is fine now. The other had some damage to the bulb fitting and still doesn't work properly so now I can clear that out to the dump too.

I had one more stop to make in town to return some socks I'd bought yesterday in Matalan. They were men's socks that I'd bought for myself but when I tried one on the elastic tops were ridiculously tight. Definitely too tight to wear. In case you are thinking that I have fat calves Pete took one look at them and said they wouldn't fit him either even though they were his size. In Matalan they were a bit hesitant about giving me a refund as I'd tried one sock on. My argument was that I was returning them because they were not fit for purpose. When I said I'd be content with credit on their store card that's what they agreed to. I'm sure I'll find something to buy there during the year. I bought myself some socks with looser tops in Tesco's instead.

After I got home and had tidied up there was time for me to carry on with the spring cleaning but I ran out of energy and took things easy instead. Plenty more days for cleaning.