Not quite a cashless society

Yesterday's trauma was that the credit card machine in Bowness, for reasons best known to itself, decided to not accept any cards, flashing up a message that (of course) wasn't in any of it's accompanying manuals. The 24 hour support service didn't extend to Sundays so, in the end, we tried the last trick in the unwritten gadget handbook - turn it off for 5 minutes and then reboot.
In both stores, the majority of the transactions are done with debit or credit card so it was quite a surprise to see that, when push came to shove, most customers weren't flummoxed by the inconvenience of a nonfunctioning credit card machine. Digging deep in to pockets and purses, our lovely customers were happy to pay with cash - one couple even calculated the taxi fare back to their hotel before paying for a a large candle with the rest of their cash. The strange thing is that, once the credit card machine was fixed, the majority of the rest of the day's sales were paid for with money rather than cards.
Today, normal service is resumed and we're gettign ready to take in our Autumn/Winter stock this week. It's set to be colder by Thursday/Friday so customers may be in the mood to buy comfort food, cashmere scarves and autumn fragrances like cinnamon and orange. Let's hope so!
Louise