Here’s a question. What can you buy for 48p these days? (That’s just short of 10 bob for those of you happier pre-decimal)

Well, you can’t buy a decent bar of chocolate and you certainly can’t buy a pint of beer, indeed in some places you couldn’t even get a single bag of crisps for 48p.

Why do I ask? Well a few weeks ago I bought 2 pairs of secateurs for 48p. Admittedly in an end of season sale, and admittedly not of the best quality, but how can you go wrong at 24p a pair, and they were yellow, my favourite colour.

Peter was disdainful, but I was quite pleased with myself.

How have they performed? Well quite well actually. The nut holding them together works loose occasionally and I just have to tighten it up again and then I had to squirt some WD40 on them the other day because they were a bit stiff, but apart from that the first pair is doing just fine.

I wouldn’t tackle anything very thick, but most of the stuff I want to prune is within their range.

Even when they give up the ghost, I still have the second pair in reserve. For me that is 48p well spent.