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Serenataflowers I think it’s important that you understand the job you do affects real people. I’ve tried communicating with you and perhaps you’ve already read this tale, therefore maybe you’d have the decency to acknowledge the disappointment of the elderly lady below or perhaps you’ll just ignore this.

Background. My grandmother doesn’t speak to her children or rather they don’t speak to her. Of the five grandchildren she has only one me speaks to her regularly (and I live hundreds of miles away).She’s 87 years old and given the above circumstances Mothers Day doesn’t have the significance it might once have had but I try – I send her cards and flowers. Cards are often hand made as I feel this is a nice touch but the flowers have always come from Serenata.

Sadly my grandmother received her flowers only to discover that many of them had already expired and those that hadn’t were already dying. At her age, whilst quite frail both physically and mentally and often lamenting the relationship she has with her children this delivery symbolised all that is bad with her life.

Why didn’t I deliver flowers myself? I’d been I Barcelona this weekend but called her upon my return to discover that the flowers were not up to standard and that she was feeling, in her words, ‘affected by it’.

Despite telling her not to worry about it, she will and has been – and this is where it’s important you listen, you aren’t just delivering flowers, sometimes you’re delivering a message, some hope, a light in a dark day. Do you see?

On Sunday you failed to help me convey that little light to my grandmother and while this isn’t a complaint it should serve as a reminder that each bouquet you deliver needs to be the absolute best you can do – not anything will do.

I hope this true tale of disappointment never happens to any of your other customers and that actually it is a one off but my trust has now been lost and therefore my custom.

Thanks for listening.


This is a little note to you, Petzl, about my annoyance, disappointment and anger at the failure of your product, the Actik, during the UTBCN.

I’ll keep it short;

  • I bought a brand new Actik head torch for use at the UTBCN
  • I gave it a one hour test run pre-race
  • I switched it on at kit check, it came on for a second then failed
  • I changed the batteries immediately – no response

Thankfully I had my Petzl e-lite (as backup), a 25 lumen head torch, which mercifully passed kit check and meant I wasn’t immediately disqualified, I knew this probably wasn’t good enough to get me round any night section I might face but at least I could start.

And so at 68km, 12hrs in, daylight finally faded and I began running using the e-lite, my iPhone torch and trying to use the light of the runners ahead of and behind me.

Not cool Petzl, not cool.

The UTBCN was a tough technical up and down course and even in the 4 or 5km I ran with limited lighting I was in trouble – unable to see where I was going, unable to see the ground clearly never mind the trail ahead. I tripped several times in this short section, more than I had done for the rest of the race!

And so at 72km I decided to stop, too embarrassed to say my head torch had failed I simply said my back was sore but the truth is I was running well with a likely finish time of under 16 hours. 

The failure of my Petzl Actik therefore was the cause of my failure at the UTBCN and I’m pretty angry about it.

What do you have to say Petzl?

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