ASDA anger and Avoncroft open air museum

Well as usual I'm annoyed at a company that I've ordered from. This time it's ASDA. I've waited 9 weeks for a sofa bed and it was promised at the very latest by last Tuesday. Did it come? No of course not, it wouldn't be the Udall household if something went right first time! 

They sent a dispatch email 3 weeks ago, I gave them two weeks and had no contact. I rang to query why I hadn't had the promised 48 hours before delivery call, when the delivery was due in 48 hours. They said they'll ring the day before and they didn't. I rang to say it's due tomorrow and you haven't rang, they said it'll definitely be there! 

It didn't come and I rang a further 3 times, each time was promised a call back in an hour, each time they didn't ring. I rang again and asked to speak to a manager, he said he'd be honest, the manufacturers said they'd sent it and the delivery company said they'd never received it, it's not coming. He offered me a refund, hell no! I said I need it in the next few weeks for my house build and they'd left me with no time to order elsewhere and get it delivered in time. I said if they couldn't find it they needed to get onto the manufacturer and get my sofa made next in the queue and delivered ASAP. He promised to call me in the morning with a delivery date and to email me the agreement within two hours. 

You've guessed what happened next already haven't you? No email, no call. I called ASDA head office in the UK, they said they'd sort it and I got another foreign call centre worker ring me yesterday. He said they're trying to find the sofa. If not it'll be 6 weeks. I told him firmly no, that's the same wait time as ordering from scratch, I want mine made priority. Anyway, he said if they can't find it by Monday it'll be re-manufactured so we'll see what happens then. I tell you it is EVERY time I order anything! 

That's not true, my washing machine died on Modnay and AO.com delivered it Friday as agreed, so it's only 50% of the time that I have issues.

Anyway, I've been quiet as all I've done is drive miles to work to do training and been staying away a whole load, I'm shattered, but it will be worth it!

Today we took the kids to Avoncroft open air museum, it's a museum where they relocate  old buildings that are at risk of demolition, then restore them. There are all sorts of fantastic buildings there; an old ice house, a post war pre-fab, a cell block, a medieval mansion, old brick works and chain manufacturers and wee man's favourite a working windmill to name a few. The very first building we came to was a corrugated metal church. The best part? It had been moved from our common, it would have been a few minutes walk away from our house just 30 years ago! It even had names that we recognise on the memorial plaques. 

James loved a showman's carriage that a successful travelling showman would have used. It was beautiful and absolutely huge, I can't believe that horses could have pulled it along rutted roads before the invention of tarmac.

Look at the detail and the painting, not to mention the diddy stove.

There's also the national telephone box collection and you can ring all the phones from each other, fun for the kids.

My favourite was the medieval manor house, it is all oak built, with compacted dirt floors, a fire pit with a suspended chimney and of course none of the windows have glass, but all have shutters. It was huge but the first floor is only on either end of the house so the floor space is less than it looks from the outside.

My favourite, look at the chimney!?

A view of the suspended chimney over the fire pit, no stone chimney breast.

View from the first floor at one end showing the centre of the building is full height and the fire pit under the chimney

You may remember I was saying that I wanted to create a flower bed to the side of our cabin and in the manor house garden they were in the process of creating vegetable beds. They used willow hurdles to delineate the margins of the beds. It is beautiful. I am going to try to replicate this in my garden. There's a willow tree outside our front gate and we have lots of Hazel trees in the garden so I may well manage it.

The hurdles that I'm going to try to replicate

If anyone lives locally they should definitely go and at the moment there's a deal on groupon where we all got in for £6. It would also be a great visit if you're on holiday in the Midlands. One day I'm definately going to let people holiday in the cabin, I have a list as long as my arm of beautiful historical local sights to send people to. England is so beautiful... and cold and wet ;-)

Ice house

Toll house from little Malvern, not far from where we live

The guy had soup on the stove and a jacket potato in the oven for his tea

The front of the pre-fab, pics below are of the interior

Air raid shelter

As an aside if you visit south Wales, St Fagans is a similar site, much larger and even better, I visited all the time when I was at Uni in Cardiff (old before my time even then!)