Where To Buy Fish

A warm welcome to the forum, @FoxyFish , and apologies for a belated reply (owing to health reasons). 

Great that your wife's birthday wishes coincide with an old hobby of yours.    Your former experience will bode well. 

Littlefish hasn't been active on the forum for some time, so you may not hear back from her although I do hope you do.

In the interim / specifically in relation to your questions, though, Littlefish is unlikely to be "au fait" with current fishkeeping shops in the area as she moved from Cambridge a few years ago. From recollection, she frequented a couple of MAs regularly, possibly some independent shops, and did travel around a fair* bit to visit others (eg there was an area near/at Crews Hill that used to have a handful in its vicinity).
However, life has changed and/or moved on for a lot of folk in recent years - both hobbyists and shops. The fishkeeping shops there last decade may not even exist these days, and the staff within them may not work there either anymore.  Maybe another member on here from the area can help?
Alternatively or additionally, it's a good excuse for you to have a tour of shops in the area to get a feel for what they're like - sometimes there's variation between staff too within the one shop. A member of staff who keeps fish as a hobby, and particularly of the types you're thinking of, probably bodes well.

I'll take a look at the other issue later and reply as soon as I can, unless anyone else can in the meantime?

[*understatement!]

Hi @fcmf , thank you for the heads up on MA and other pointers.  We are planning a trip out the weekend to start looking and to look at different tanks.

Thanks for the link re CC, I have cracked it nw and saving different combinations...not because I intend to create them but to remind myself of suitability for hardish water and compatibility with each other.

I'll updte how we get on once my wife has decided on the tank and a few fish favorites.