How not to buy a Christmas Tree

We need a tree. It's always a bone of contention, I like to put one up on Christmas Eve, Leanne likes to get her money's worth, and Maisie wasn't feeling Christmassy as ALL her friends have theirs up. Two against one - a compromise - the week before Christmas sounds good.


We had two choices - Longshaw the local National Trust place up the road - or Steve's down the road. Up the road offered the advantage of a nice dog walk through national trust winter wonderland - well, snow on trees.

On arrival the parking guy said it's free parking if you buy a tree- and you get a cup of tea and a mince pie - lovely. Off we traipsed to the tree buying area. All went well until we saw the prices, there must be some cheaper ones somewhere. In search of the bargain tree, I think I spotted one, when the dog comes along and pees on it.

I have to say, when you are after a bargain, and are preparing to beat the tree selling guy down to a fair price, your dog coming up and peeing on the merchandise is not a particularly good starting place.

Needles to say, the tree selling guy was on the verge of rudeness and not in any mood to be beaten down in price. Oh well, off to Steve's down the road, leaving the bargain tree surrounded by yellow snow for the next lucky tree purchaser.

We went for a quick walk anyway, blagged our way past the parking attendant and set off.

Steve had a very informative sign 'No Dogs' - how sensible. He also had a lovely bright red tree sticking out of the pile of now grey snow at the side of the road.

We got a lovely tree, perfect for our purposes, and at the fraction of the price of the ones up the road - and the pièce de résistance was it didn't stink of dog wee - win win.