Boxing clever thanks to Judi

I’ve banged on quite a lot over the past few months about how when you set out to avoid the supermarkets you really get to know your local shopkeepers and begin to consider them as friends.

And I can’t think of a better way to illustrate this than when I popped into my local pet shop, Hasland Pet Supplies, yesterday to pick up some cat food and a new collar for Pepper cat.

The collar was particularly urgent. Pepper lost her old one a few days ago and on Friday night I got home from a long day at work (and a really tedious train journey) to find a bird masacre had taken place. The hall was covered with feathers and a tiny prone body lay stiffly on the doormat.

It must have been a particularly retarded bird because Pepper has never been any good at catching things, but I reckon it’s only fair to our local wildlife to stick a bell on her - just in case she has sudden fit of hunting brilliance. And probably also only fair to Pepper’s Auntie Anna, who is very sportingly letting me bring my animals when I move in with her, and probably doesn’t want to have to deal with dead bodies littering the hallway.

But I digress. Last week I blogged about moving house, and how I’m not able to do my usual trick of using Morrison’s banana boxes to pack.



The boxes Judi saved for me



So yesterday, when I walked into the pet shop, Judi immediately made a beeline for the back of the store.



“Don’t worry Jade,” she hollered as she rummaged around amongst her stock. “I saw the blog and I’ve already started setting some aside for you. We’ve not actually had a delivery yet, so I haven’t got many, but as soon as we do I’ll have some more for you.”

Judi then produced about six flattened cardboard boxes of varying sizes, including a couple that she said would be the perfect size for CDs (and she was absolutely right, I packed my slightly questionable music collection into them this morning).



Pepper with her collar and mouse



I was touched that she’d thought of me and started saving - before I even asked. Judi is a really brilliant example of a small business owner who is genuinely concerned about and actively involved with her local community. She’s been campaigning to get a better road layout than the traffic lights on the main road (where crashes routinely happen) and yesterday I found a box of hand-knitted toy mice on her counter, being sold to raise money for our local animal rescue centre.

Of course, I took a mouse home for Pepper as well as a bling-tastic hot pink collar with little fishes on it, having decided that if she’s going to wear a collar, she may as well wear a silly one. Pimp my cat, etc etc....

And thanks to Judi, I’ve managed to get quite a bit of packing done this morning too.