Thinking back today on things I lost in the bushfire.

My dad when he passed, left me some money, and I decided I would put it to good use and change things to improve the house we were living in a year before the fires.

First was the front room carpet – and after doing so I was able to write a missive on – ‘How to buy carpet in four not so easy lessons’. Read on, dear people, and learn. I can smile, now.

1. Go to Bunnings talk to nice man, choose carpet go home wait days for measurer to come.

2. Measurers come measure carpet check carpet number, uh oh, that carpet is out of stock. I politely suggested they take the darned sample thing off the shelf then.

3. Go back to nice man at Bunnings, choose another slightly different shade and slightly more expensive carpet.

4. Get a phone call saying layers will come Tuesday. Chuck all stuff out of room ready (unloading full bookcase is a big job).

5. Get distressed phone call from nice man at Bunnings… carpet of second choice has a flaw in it… oh…

6. Go back to Bunnings (mind you, this is a half an hour drive into the suburbs. And back), choose ANOTHER carpet, suggest before I leave the store that we check it’s available… well it is BUT they don’t have enough… oh….

7. Nice man looks at me flinching. I look at him and suggest we abandon everything and go to lunch… but we soldier on.. choose ANOTHER (is this four or five?) nice carpet but $5 a metre more expensive… I sigh… and suggest that just maybe I should get a bit of consideration considering my many many many trips (well really only three – or four) trips all the way down from my place to Broadie and the non-availability of carpet…

8. Nice man has already considered this and goes off comes back and I get the dearer carpet for the original price… such a nice man…

And it came, and it looked lovely for a year… and is now ash along with the rest of the house. Ah well.

Next there was the stove.

The door of the old oven fell off… well I suppose it had good reason it had done sterling service for more than 20 years.

So, we decided, as we had dad’s money, a new one was in order. Off to Harvey Norman. My only instructions were it was to be a self cleaner I was NOT ever going to clean another bloody oven. I found one – $1200 – and also bought new microwave and range hood…

The rangehood was necessary.  Husband thought it was vanity on my part, so  he turned old one on with a flourish to show me it was still serviceable and the screech of a thousand witches set the dogs barking and every bird in the distance into a nervous moult.

I looked at him, he looked at me, and we ordered a new rangehood.

Anyway. The electrician (friend of the family) arrived to install it into its specially made box (done by friend of the family).

We all stood back to admire it… but the expensive appliance didn’t work…

It was happy to light its clock, change its timer… but cook… no way.

The men got the instruction book out, studied it from all angles, read it to each other… nope….

So I phoned Harvey Norman who merely put us on to the maker. The technician needed some severe lessons in customer service… he gave an exasperated sigh and said read the instructions… we told him we had in similar tones…

Eventually, they replaced it… Sound familiar?

And, like the carpet, it is no more.

I have vowed and declared I will not buy from a big chain store ever again. They are bad luck.