Zoom In Zoom Out #6

After another breakage on our unforgiving kitchen floor and yet another chipped dish thanks to careless dishwasher emptying, I decided we could not cope with seven assorted plates and four mismatched bowls and it was time for some new "everyday" crockery.  We found a style we liked in a local store but ordered online as that way we could get the requisite eight plate settings and have it delivered.  Eight might seem a little excessive as there are just three of us at home at the moment, but the dishwasher only runs once a day and when we have family here we regularly have a table full!

Another advantage of having the crockery delivered was that I could inspect it at my leisure before returning some.  It wasn't that I was expecting a packaging problem ... in fact there was so much bubble-wrap, corrugated cardboard and airbag filling that there was only one cracked plate in 40 items.  A good start.

However, experience has taught me that "everyday" crockery, made in China, is not subject to the world's best quality control and that there would be flaws in the glaze or pattern on a proportion of the dishes.  And I was right!  Three of the side plates and four of the dinner plates had tiny flecks in the white glaze that would forever make them look like they hadn't been washed properly!  Luckily the local store had enough stock without obvious flaws to replace them.  All that remained was an hour of plate washing (by hand) to remove the residue of labels and very sticky sticky-tape that had secured them during transit.

I'm linking up with Helena's 6th week of Zoom In Zoom Out ...but I'm hoping for better weather so that I can get outdoors for next week's ZIZO.