I ordered the tulips. What turned up was chickens.

My heart sank a bit, and not because of the chickens. They're lovely. It sank because I knew what came next.

A form buried somewhere on a website. A return label I'd have to print, and I don't own a printer. A fortnight of waiting. Somebody in a call centre reading off a script about how my enquiry is important to them.

I've done all that before with shops far bigger than two sisters in Ballarat. It has never once been quick.

So I emailed, and I didn't expect much.

This came back the same afternoon.

Sophie's reply, 10:41 the same day.

I read it twice.

She didn't have to tell me it was her mistake. She could have blamed the courier, or the packers, or said nothing at all and quietly sent the right one. I'd never have known the difference.

And she didn't ask for the chickens back.

The chickens. They live on the chair by the window now.

The tulips arrived eight days later, exactly as she said they would.

Here's why I'm bothering to write this down.

Ordering from a shop you've never heard of is a small act of faith. You hand your card over to a website and you hope. Most of the time it's fine and you forget all about it. Every so often it isn't, and that's when you find out what sort of people you've been dealing with.

I found out on a Tuesday afternoon, and it cost me nothing at all.

The chickens are still on that chair. I catch myself looking at them more often than I'd care to admit, and it isn't because of the chickens. It's that somebody could have quietly covered up a small mistake and chose not to, and then wouldn't take the thing back.

That's the whole of it. I've ordered twice more since.