Rachel very kindly invited me to have coffee-and-a-cob with her at a local Garden Centre this lunchtime whilst Bob was at a meeting. Here in Leicestershire, a cob is a large bread roll [in other parts of the UK it can refer to a loaf, a nut, a horse, a swan or a building]
Garden Centres fascinate me - at least 75% of their merchandise appears to have very little to do with gardening! I mean, say "Gardening" and you may think of Alan Titchmarsh, trowels, herbacious borders, compost, chitting potatoes and a fine tilth - but not monogrammed spectacle cases, Earl Grey Tea in fancy caddies, birthday cards with dubious inscriptions, and ugly plastic figurines of drunken grannies. But there they all were today, on sale - not that the punters appeared to be buying.
I am currently struggling to grow cress on a flannel [but that's another story you will hear after the weekend] so made sure we stayed in the non-horticultural areas of the complex today.
I was very taken with a display of resin letters -but at £6.49 each decided £38.94 was a bit much to display ANGELA on the mantelpiece [let alone almost eighty quid for CORNERSTONES]
Then I noticed the letters on the display were just held up with blu-tac. I was SO tempted to make anagrams and re-arrange them.
The original display said this
Bearing in mind we were standing near to the Cafe, I debated something relating to the Soup of The Day
- GRUEL? POKE IT!
- OL' TIGER PUKE
- OK, TRIPE GLUE
- EEK! I GULP ROT
Fortunately sanity prevailed and I didn't move the letters at all, just left them where they were, before I fell into a ROGUE ELK PIT. Furthermore, such anagrams recall required punctuation, which was not available . Being a bit of a pedant, I couldn't leave such phrases incorrectly punctuated [cf Eats, Shoots, and Leaves] Rachel was amused - but in the end I simply took a photo of the display and we left the shop giggling!
I do understand about the punctuation, Ang. I once told a supervisor in M ans S that I didnt think the word 'sandal's' showed their staff off to any great advantage.
ReplyDeleteHahaha - very funny - are you a crossword fanatic?! And how about 'cobweb' - I wonder on the origins of that one. First found on cob houses? Or maybe totally unrelated. Cress on a flannel? Mmmm look forward to hearing about that one.
ReplyDeleteHi Angela
ReplyDeleteI quite agree garden ventres seem to be like gift stores. All have bags off sweets near the cash tills , my children always try!.
I love the letters too I must agree they are expensive. I know some people buy the cheaper wooden ones on ebay and they decoupage them up and they look fantastic after. Depending on what size they are the smaller the more reasonable.
take care x Dom
Glad I am not the only pedant around here! And you are right about sweets at the tills. It is SO unfair on parents.
ReplyDeleteCobweb - From the Middle English coppeweb, meaning spider web. Coppe is an abbreviation of the Old English attercoppe, meaning poison head. In contemporary usage, an abandoned spider web. Nothing to do with the internet!!
[how geeky am I?]