Planters Garden Centre

We seem to go quite frequently, perhaps rather less so of late. I am rather interested in gardening or rather I should really say I was as I can only manage less nowadays. Planters is a convenient journey and is fairly large and diverse.

Over the years we must have bought quite a lot. In fairness most of our purchases were various goods rather than plants. I rarely buy ornamentals and while we have sometimes bought fruit trees I have tended to buy elsewhere particularly bare rooted trees.

They have a dedicated ornamental fish section, Ripples, where we seem to have bought fish mainly carp to restock our pond. Our large pond is rather neglected. We had a big burst of activity about 15 years ago when we installed a fibreglass liner. The original brick built pond was leaking. This original had been part of an elaborate water feature incorporating a water fall and small upper reservoir. This was decrepit when we arrived and we abandoned the original design in favour of a simple pond and fountain.

When Martin was ill, and at home one summer while undergoing chemotherapy, he developed a great interest in ornamental fish. Apart from tanks in the house he was fond of the outdoor pond. Ever since we have had a sentimental regard for the outdoor fish and have restocked after occasional episodes when all died. Our fish bought at Ripples. I fear we may need to restock again.

Planters has changed over the years getting larger and more elaborate. We have always admired their Christmas display and this was annual visit with grandchildren. They had a model world which never ceased to amaze. I was very impressed myself when the latest addition was a working chair lift. The pets corner was an all year round attraction. However we only go to view the animals as I’m very against having them at home. The pets are all small such as rabbits, hamsters and the like – no cats or dogs.

One recent venture is their Skytrail. This is a large elevated structure maybe 20 metres high. The idea is that you are clipped onto a safety harness and then climb and walk around the structure . This looks fairly daunting and we had reservations about the grandchildren using it. However Ellie and Nate seemed perfectly at home with no worries about heights. I think I was more worried watching them.

One feature we used to enjoy was the carvery lunch .Apart from being excellent value an amusing feature was the very outgoing chief chef who would wonder around making  jokes with the customers. This old restaurant has been replaced with a larger one. The design is interesting but regrettably the food prices have gone up and the quality down.

We were tempted to try the new restaurant lunch by a BOGOF offer, actually I think the second was a pound. We have visited before for coffee; there is a separate area as a coffee shop, plus something I heartily approve; a separate area for dogs and their owners. The coffee area has customer newspapers which is another advance I also like.

For food gone are the carvery days, even gone is self service,. Now it is pay, take a tracker and wait to be served by a waitress. I had cottage pie, nice enough but obviously mass produced and bought in. Clearly the in house chef has gone.

An alternative even larger centre, a Dobbies, is rather further away but may well gain more of my custom. I like a scone with my coffee and they have the best in the area. I would say beaten only by Sherlock’s at Whitby which is our standard source in that area. Another advantage of Dobbies is that their range is even larger than Planters although I was disappointed that their children’s toys section has been replaced by an outdoor goods section.

The economic price.

The leaking of the governments own forecasts for post EU economy shows -5% on the best scenario and -8% on the worst. The leavers are making pathetic attempts to play down these results which they wanted to stay secret.

Boris Johnson has a fantasy of £100m a week for the NHS ( whatever happened to £350m? ) but these forecasts just mirror every other forecast that there will be a price to pay. All those leavers are making everyone pay whether they were willing or not.

An honest referendum rerun is too much to hope for with Tories apparently at the mercy of the swivel eyed fanatics and Labour unwilling to say anything. Britain is steadily drifting towards a second class performance. Even pre Brexit our 1.8% growth in 2017 contrasts with the Eurozone +2.5%.

All very sad.