B&Q purchase: £2!
I'm constantly surprised at my local B&Q's succulent selection. I mean, it's not great, but it's still better than I expected. I even managed to find a gollum jade there for fairly cheap.
Anyway, it took me a while to commit to getting this cactus. I love the look of them, especially the pink variety [opuntia microdasys ssp. rufida], but became wary of them when I learned what glochids are. They are apparently Satan.
So I got it in the end, but I put off repotting it for a couple of weeks. It turned out OK, though; I wore some gardening gloves but still handled them with newspaper where I could. I read somewhere that someone used a double or triple layer of latex gloves and that worked for them.
I'll probably end up giving it away if I have many mishaps with it. We'll see how it goes.