Mrs. M. The Legend! Part Two of Our Story
Tuesday, May 10, 2011 @ 6:32 PM
The best part of running our garden centre was the customers. Not all of them mind, but some of them became regulars and even if they didn’t want to buy anything, they would come into the shop for a chat and a free cup of tea. I think we served as many teas as the snack wagon outside in the corner of the car park. We nicknamed our shop The Confessional as people would come in and start telling us their life stories. We weren’t nosy and certainly didn’t pry – they just seemed relaxed enough in our company to pour their hearts out. Either that or the shop was used as a “soapbox” where people would come in and air their grievances about what was going on locally or in the news and we would have a good debate. Others came in purely for a laugh and some good-natured banter. Our favourite couple, Mr & Mrs M., were in their early 70’s, but they joked around like teenagers and had other customers and us in stitches most of the time. In our second summer of trading we expanded into the hot tub spa market and put up a massive gazebo in the middle of the garden centre with working models on display. I have to say they were impressive. The spas had hot water, bubbling away invitingly with flashing lights & a waterfall around the outside – irresistible! Mrs. M. absolutely loved them when she first saw them and promised that she’d be back the next week with her bikini. We thought that she was joking, but the next week when she arrived she started cursing and swearing because she’d forgotten her cozzy. She was really angry with herself. But instead of waiting till the following week to test out the spas as we advised, she stood on the gazebo, in the middle of our garden centre and stripped off to her bra & knickers and jumped in! She sat there for nearly an hour, drinking a cup of tea whilst other customers wandered past her laughing & giggling. She didn’t give a fig what anyone else thought. Mind you that was the easy part! The hard part came when she decided to get out. We searched everywhere for a towel and then she stripped off completely, in full sight of everyone to dry herself. Mrs. M. was a legend! Without days like that, I think we would have found it very tough to keep on going as times got harder and harder.