Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Stuff going wrong

As you can probably tell from the sparse posting, I'm not doing amazingly well at the moment.

Despite that, today was a gloriously sunny day, and I went into town fully intending to make the most of it. I had a lovely picnic lunch by the river in the park, then I went into town, planning to drop in on the shop that we had booked to do our balloon decorations for the wedding, because I figured they were a likely candidate to have some other party supplies I wanted.

They didn't.

I know they didn't, because when I rolled up to the shop, there was a big "To Let" sign over the door, and the windows were soaped over, and when I found a gap to squint through, the shop was completely empty apart from a couple of cardboard boxes. Their website had been taken offline, and their phone number just rang and rang and rang.

I can only assume they've gone bust. It's late March. The wedding is in May. I wonder if or when they were going to tell me.

So, if anyone can recommend a balloon decoration firm in the Warwickshire/West Midlands area, reasonably priced, who might still have availability for a Saturday in May, that would be helpful. Yes, I can JFGI, but I thought I'd ask for personal recommendations first.

I had a semi-fruitful search for the additional party supplies I was looking for - as in, I found some, but they were quite a bit more expensive than I could justify. Scratch that idea.

I got a cup of tea, which helped, and then started to make my way back to the other end of town to be picked up, and that was when I realised that one of my Awesome Wheels had a flat. Happily, since I was being picked up anyway, I was rescued within the hour - unhappily it's a real flat, pump it up and you can hear the air hissing out, rather than just a bit of a drop in pressure. Tomorrow I'm off to see the chaps at Leamington Shopmobility to find out how much it will cost to sort out.

I'm trying to focus on the positive - I had my lunch in the sun by the river, I did get rescued, Shopmobility will be able to get me mobile again one way or the other, and at least I found out about the balloon place now rather than in six weeks' time - but it does feel like it's been rather a crappy day.

4 comments:

erasmus (aka jiva) said...

If its a flat it can be just the inner tube that needs to be replaced. You could go to a bike shop to see if its cheaper.
If you tweet your balloon request, I'll pass it on, may get other people from the area. :) better to go wrong now than on the day. Shout me if you need anything. xx

Mary said...

Thanks lovely - you always make me feel supported. :)

Hopefully it is just the inner tube. I can't take it to a bike shop because of the warranty rules about only allowing trained people to muck about with the wheels, but shopmobility won't screw me over (and even if they did, they're a cause worth supporting).

I'll tweet the balloony request tomorrow and we'll see what happens :)

t'other half said...

Feels like an issue between the valve and innertube - that's where most of the hissing and draught is coming from. The valve-hole through the rim looks a bit rough-edged so it might be worth getting it sanded down a bit before the new tube is fitted (take the purple sandpaper, it's about the right grade, maybe your needlefile set for the edges too).
/end technical discussion
At least you got some sunshine in the park, and didn't get stranded with a flat tire in the rain, which I believe is more traditional :-)

fairyhedgehog said...

It sounds like a very crappy day. I hope things are looking up now.