Image by marcusjroberts via Flickr

On Thursday I had a job of installing wiring and accessories in a ‘summer-house‘ in someone’s garden. I then had to lay in a supply from their garage which meant using special cable called pvc/swa (pvc, steel wire armoured). This cable was to be sunk underground between the buildings, a distance of about twenty metres. Fortunately I wouldn’t be doing the digging but I laid it along the route ready for the guy to do it himself and got on with connecting it both ends. First of all though I had to buy it! I had spent a couple of hours installing the wiring and accessories in the summer-house then I had to drive back into town about six miles away to purchase the armoured cable and some sundry items. The supplier I usually use was out of stock! Just my luck! I wanted to complete the job on the same day. Fortunately there is another supplier a few metres away and they were able to supply me with what I needed. As I was leaving the first supplier a young girl came in. Whilst I was being served in the second place the same girl walked in. I asked her if she was having the same problem as myself, they were out of stock. ‘Oh no’ she said, ‘I am trying to sell tickets for a local charity. Would you like to buy one’? I said, ‘Here is £5, I will buy a ticket’. She told me they were only £1 each and I could have five. I agreed and she asked which ones would I like. I told her to pick them for me. She took my details in case I won then she asked if I was an electrician. She could see that I was buying electrical things that the average woman wouldn’t be buying so I guess it was a logical question. Having told her that I was she asked for how long and I said almost 45 years. She was amazed then went on to tell me that she had been training to be a plumber but stuck it out for only twelve months. I asked why and she giggled and said it isn’t good for my nails! Her short experience as a plumber had landed her a job with the plumbers merchant just across the way from the electrical suppliers and she said she was doing fine there. She is a little over nineteen years of age and I am wondering just how long she will stay with that organisation. Incidentally, it was a slightly older female who served me in the electrical shop! She has been there some time and she must be about 28 years old I would think. I returned to my job and finished what I could do and got everything working. The guy will most probably be digging a trench this weekend! Yesterday, Friday, I was sitting with my computer some time in the morning and the phone rang. It was the young girl who had sold me the tickets. ‘Is that Shirley Anne’? she asked. ‘You have won the ticket draw’, she continued. ‘£40′, she said. I said thank you of course but I would collect the prize next time I was in the neighbourhood. I discovered that she lived quite close to me so I asked if she could drop it at my house on her way home. She would do that she said. However, about an hour later, a large van belonging to the plumbers merchant pulled up outside my house. It was the girl. She had come out with the van driver to deliver my winnings. Nice surprise eh? It has been some time since I won anything but that’s the way it goes.

Shirley Anne