Jul 15, 2009

Thunderstorms and Secret Shopping....

Ok, so this is my last free day before the Open starts along with the cricket..I shall be listening to TMS (Test Match Special) on the laptop and watching the golf on the TV...I re-iterated to Gary today that we shall be having short walks tomorrow, he looked at me dolefully ... and then rolled over for a tummy tickle..I'm not sure he understands.


Today, however, I took him for two extra long walks...well that was the plan anyway. The morning walk worked out well, plenty of distanced covered, the sun out and not too hot yet (maybe 80?) Gary finding a new stick to play with and all good with the world...this afternoon was a different matter. We had only gone about 1/2 a mile when there was a large clap of thunder...a bit weird as it appeared to still be sunny...but that is a sign to turn around and make a move back to safety.


Within a shouting distance of the apartment it started to rain, and if you have never been to Florida, it rarely just 'spits', we ran the last few yards and Gary sprinted up the stairs...I'm not much of a sprinter and he dragged me up the last few. Seconds later the world was ending...


This was just a snippet..it actually got worse, and to his credit Gary only lifted his head up once when the power got knocked out for a few seconds and the room went dark... it was pretty miserable for about 30 mins...appearing to be about 9pm instead of mid afternoon. Anyway it's stopped now thankfully and Gary has been lying next to the balcony window waiting for the re-commencement of his walk....

That would have to wait because I was off to the Mall to do some secret shopping. Mystery shopping is a tool used by market research companies to measure quality of retail service or gather specific information about products and services. Mystery shoppers posing as normal customers perform specific tasks—such as purchasing a product, asking questions, registering complaints or behaving in a certain way – and then provide detailed reports about their experiences. I can't tell you who I was shopping today, but it's a national chain...it's quite fun when you know how associates are supposed to behaving..fortunately for today's 'victims' they had been well trained and performed well...kudos to them..

Oh well I'm training some clients online in Australia this evening, so time to sign off, but with an upcoming trip planned down under there should be some interesting opportunities to blog about it in the near future.

Until tomorrow..although if you have no interest in cricket or golf you may want to leave off reading for a few days!!


3 comments:

Sue B said...

I think we are due to get a little light drizzle tomorrow also x

Sue B said...

Umm, another question - how did you happen across the Chicken Blog??

Clare and Gary said...

Sun blazing again here...it's so bloody fickle! Found the Chicken Blog as it was a 'Blog of the Day' on Blogspot and I thought it was quite interesting...and I liked the name!

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