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Courtesy of Tesco supermarket, I unexpectedly received a Mother's Day gift today, Friday 4th April. (In the UK the celebration was Sunday 30th March).
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| A nice plant picture |
The plant was sitting on a shelf in a white pot tied with a pink velvet ribbon. It was on its own and without any identifiers. The plant was stunning. Without name or care instructions it was a beautiful mystery. The lack of labelling or bar code was a problem for the store. There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing... 'no, there was no way to check it out on stock sheets. The man said it appeared to be left over from Mother's Day sales.
You take it ... the man said ... as a gift from Tesco. I was delightfully flustered. I carefully placed it into my shopping trolley.
Notwithstanding I was willing to pay for it, there was no way it could go through the system, I was told, as there was nothing to link it to. I was instructed to take it to the checkout with my shopping and yes, I was assured it would be okay. The cashiers would be told it was to be let through.
At a Checkout: I have been given this as a gift there's nothing to pay - I told the cashier - she grinned at me, looked at the unidentifiable plant - and she was mystified as to what to do.
I was to tell you it is a gift, I re-asserted, and I explained the story.
........Oh, you really mean it ....yes, I said.
Tonight I had a fascinating time researching:
I looked at succulents......it was not one of those.
It's a Palm I was told........ it was not one of those.
Scouring various internet sites, I came across a botanical tropical plants identifier site. It's amazing what can be found when you accidentally hit upon the right search terms. Peering at page after page of interesting plant thumbnail pictures, one species eventually jumped out at me.
This is what I found and it is what I have!
The Tillandsia (Tilly) Cyanea, a Bromeliad native of the Ecuadorian rainforest.
Storms are raging over Shetland. Elsewhere in the far North of Scotland there are gales. To give some perspective, a Gale is anything about wind force 7 to 9, (anything less than 7 is rather windy) and a storm is wind force 10. Force ten is really fierce.
In our gales of about wind force 8 today, Royal Mail delivered our post.
The poor post woman who arrived on our doorstep, (to my surprise)
looked quite dazed and battered; she said it was really difficult to
hold on to the post she was carrying and delivering.
The seas rage, the winds blast, scream, push and shove; it knows no chivalry. The lifeline ferries to the islands take shelter and stay in port. There will be no deliveries of the everyday commodities to the islands that we take for granted. There has been little let up in the gales and flooding this week causing transport and domestic chaos in many parts of the UK.
In view of the extreme weather conditions the management of Tesco Limited, have chartered a Hercules Transport plane to make four deliveries of commodities this weekend, to the storm bound Shetland islanders. I am not aware of any other major food and goods retailer that has a presence on the island, who would do this.
I'm not surprised that Tesco's Christmas period and end of year sales figures significantly dropped, if my experience doing business with my local and not so local Tesco stores is anything to go by. All major shopping chains play price games. Customers have become price aware, while at the same time their budgets have become tighter.
A re-engagement with the customer is needed. There has developed a distinct lack of respect for the food shopping public. The senior management, wherever they are based, do not seem to be of this world and so have taken their eye off the ball. The yo-yo pricing games have been crude and offend our basic intelligence.
Autumn 2011, my Tesco shopping basket was radically effected. For example the dairy items I buy, suddenly were offered at two items for exactly double the price, but, an individual pack of the same thing was more expensive. I did not want to double up on dairy produce shopping in order to get the previous equivalent price paid. The same pricing mechanism was initiated with many other products in store, I would not have doubled up my shopping on them either.
Next, while massively advertising there were to be prices drops throughout the store, my single unit items increased from late Autumn 2011 prices by 25% - 35%. I now buy the same type of dairy products elsewhere, weight for weight, no obvious quality difference, at or close to the prices I paid prior to Tesco's Autumn hikes in 2011.
The latest Tesco wheeze is to increase the cost of the 'budget ranges' of foods, pricing them at or close to the main range items. The more expensive foods now advertise a price reduction bringing them closer to the new higher prices of the budget foods! Surely shopping habits of customers must tell the retailer something more constructive than how to alienate their customer base.
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