My love affair with vacuum cleaners began years ago when all homes seemed to have that dinky little ball shaped Hoover with a flip top lid for bag removal.
In my life I have had various types and makes, aloof uprights, cute sausage cylinders, Wet and Dry, but I've always hankered after a cute little ball of a vacuum cleaner of my own.

Most people seemed to have been seduced by Mr Dyson and hid dual cyclones but having seen them in action I decided against it on two counts;
1. It was far too noisy, too much noise makes me very irritable - ask my children.
and
2. I don't really want to see the contents of my carpet whizzing around at high speed.

Henry is made by Numatic International Limited, their web site (www.numatic.co.uk) describes them as 'the U.K.’s largest manufacturer of vacuum cleaners, floor polishing machines and janitorial equipment.'.
Henry is a small but powerful domestic vacuum cleaner. He comes from a family of smiley-faced brothers in various colours (Basil, Edward, Charles and George), but Henry is the cutest one; the Thomas the Tank Engine of the family.

If you have never seen Henry being propelled round shops at closing time because you don't leave Christmas shopping to the last possible minute like me, then let me describe him;
He is small, his exact specifications are 340 x 340 x 370 mm (or 13.5 x 13.5 x 14.5" in old money) and he is light (5.9kgs or almost 3 bags of sugar)
His bottom half houses the bag with a capacity of 9 litres and is available in four colours blue, yellow, green or red with a smiley little face looking up at you.
His lid doubles up nicely as his bowler hat.
His long (31.8m or 104ft) flex is nicely contained inside his hat and is easy to pull out before you start or will unwind by itself very smoothly as you pull him along. This is great as it saves me plugging and unplugging and thereby spoiling the flow. I can do all downstairs, up the stairs and one bedroom in one plugging these days.
There is a handle built into his hat which folds flat and a little red power button that just pushes on or off.

I am never sure of the proper names for the different attachments, I only ever use the flat floor one (with two adjustable heights for either uncarpeted or carpeted floor) sometimes with recourse to the long pointy one for a really stubborn piece of mashed potato up a skirting board. The 'crevice tool, I believe it's called, and my crevices have never been so clean.

Well, he's brilliant, not that I'm biased, but he is. He's not a loud machine, he doesn't startle babies and there doesn't seem to be anything he won't suck up, apart from anything wet - he is a dry vacuum cleaner only.
My Weeping Fig moulted all of it's leaves in the matter of a few days the other week as it seems to do every so often (due to stress apparently). With other vacuum cleaners I have had to stop a few times to unclog tubes and attachments, Not so Henry, he ate the leaves like they were crisps. He has a powerful suction, which can be reduced by opening a hole on the top of the extension. This is useful for cleaning loose covers or the toast crumbs out of your toaster.
He wheels easily with just a little help needed up and down steps and he's quite light, even with a full bag, so he doesn't gives you Stretch Armstrong arms when you're trying to carry him up stairs.

The manual is very basic, so for people who don't like pages of instructions it is ideal.
It is a pictorial explanation of how to set him up and use him.
There are 14 pictures showing the following;
1. How to take off the lid and remove the filter.
2. How to put in a new bag
3. how to replace the filter and lid and clip the top back on
4. How to attach the extension tube to the attachment
5. How to slot on the other two extensions
6. How to attach the extensions to the hose, how to adjust the final extension it
to suit your height and how to adjust the power of the suction
7. How to attach the hose to Henry's nose and how to switch him on and off
8. How to adjust the floor attachment for carpeted or uncarpeted floors.
9 &10 How to affix the other attachments (it would have been helpful here to show
their different uses and name them
11. How to use the little clip on the side to hold spare attachments.
12. How to wind he cable back into the lid
13. How to clean the filter
14. How to remove and dispose of a full bag.

web site: www.numatic.co.uk