Monday, November 13, 2006

Off Your trolley?

Ok, time to set a new trend. If you can shop locally, want to carry a lot and save your arms, because let’s face it, a week’s shopping in plastic bags is going to make your muscles ache, the trendy thing to do is to use a trolley. If you are in the city, that’s a good thing to have, in the country the bike and baskets may do a similar thing, In any case, you are using your power, a storage facility that is reused and you can go in shops and just fill the thing up and wheel it away.

So what choices are open to you with regards to trolleys:

You could go for the basket on wheels handmade in Somerset by PH Coate & Son (www.englishwillowbaskets.co.uk, 01823 490249) and costs £58.90.
The most designer-label trolley around is by Orla Kiely (www.orlakiely.com, 020-7240 4022), with a price to match: £220. It looks more like a suitcase on wheels (but it is a shopping trolley, it opens at the top and the zip extends quite a way down the sides so you can easily get to things), so it's good if you want a shopping trolley that's a bit incognito, and you can pretend you're on the way back from the station or airport.

In terms of the most practical shopping trolley, you need to go to a branch of Debenhams that has the Molly by Tripp (www.tripp.co.uk, 0845-345 6085), £29. It comes in a variety of colours. The height of the trolley is adjustable and it folds up when not in use; it even has a bicycle bell!
One of the cheapest and funkiest around is by Habitat (www.habitat.net, 020-7614 5500), although the new colours are neutral to bland.
But cheapest of all is the Foldaway Shopping Trolley, £10.95, code 20659, in black or green (www.lakelandlimited.co.uk, 015394 88100). It folds into a little bag so is very portable, but does have something of the old lady about it.

We sent urban girl with small flat out into fashionable city to do her shopping with her Molly trolley and she made the following comments :

Got some stares from people, thought I might be out to shoplift although that would not be easy with 2 bags to undo, outer layer and inner layer to waterproof bag.
Do not wear a woolly hat it does make you indistinguishable from the old lady image,
It got filled up easily but when I got home it was a bother to take it up the stairs.
The bell makes an interesting addition. The public on the highway was not sure who had priority, the old lady, the young mum with pram or me with the shopping trolley. I may have looked more dangerous or just unknown so was given priority.

All in all, it could be the way forward to carry your shopping locally and in the end it will be a case of either being a basket case or off your trolley, whichever you choose, some people will continue to see you as mad, different and just plain weird. Never mind, you know why you are doing it...and in the end that is all that matters.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was very pleased to see that one of the shops I visited last week is now selling trollies. Hurrah! I'm a trend setter.