A homage to loading screens.
In which I visit my tailor
Today was: funeral outfit shopping day. I don’t have anything suitable for funeral-wearing at all in the wardrobe; the only time I ever wear something really formal is for job interviews, and my job interview suit isn’t exactly funereal enough for the occasion. So, down to Debenhams on my lunchbreak to find something that vaguely fits me.
In which measurements are somewhat elastic
Yuletide being over now, we’ve finally got all of the necessaries over and done with. Visiting all the family, distributing all the presents, and taking back to the shops everything that doesn’t fit.
In which we go to the seaside
We should be banned from second-hand bookshops. They’re far too tempting. Even though we have hundreds of books, many many books we’ve never read, we still can’t resist popping into a second-hand bookshop and buying more. It’s not like going in a normal bookshop, where you have a good chance the same books will be on the shelf the following week. If you’re in a town you don’t know, and you visit a second-hand bookshop, there’s a good chance you might come across a book that you’ll never, ever see again anywhere else.
In which we lament the demise of vinyl
Ah, farewell then, Woolworths. Well … maybe. Certainly my local shop is still soldiering on, as I assume the rest are.*
In which we are still on a quest for condensed milk
After Thursday’s post, Kahlan got back in touch, with a tip-off. Apparently there had been a rumoured sighting of a can of own-brand non-evil condensed milk, in a Waitrose. So our Saturday was spent driving 25 miles to Harrogate, the nearest branch,* to find … Nestlé products firmly on the shelves. Oh well.
In which we're warm on holiday
“Ooh, how are you going to cope with the weather,” everyone said, when I told them I was going to Riga. “You’d better get some warm clothes.”
In which we feel like cancelling Christmas but bringing back Yule
There’s five days to go, and I already feel like I want to cancel Christmas. I haven’t written a single card. I haven’t bought many presents, and I have no idea what The Parents actually want. To be fair, neither do they. I try to go look for something on my lunch break, and everyone else has had the same idea. The roads into town are gridlocked; as soon as I’ve found a parking space, it’s time to head out back to the office again.
In which we're all efficient
We managed to be awfully productive yesterday. We’d gone to bed fairly early on Saturday night,* so got up bright and early on Sunday morning. We were having breakfast in town when the streets were still deserted, and were wandering around shopping in almost-empty shops. We even managed to get all H’s grocery shopping done, get back home, feel like we’d used up a full day’s energy, and it was still only one o’clock. A whole half-a-day left to do productive things, creative things, imaginative things, limited only by our own imaginations.
Or, time to go shopping
A very nice man said to me today: “It’s been a good year, I think.” And it has for me, too. It’s been a very good year, and a very bad year; and the strange thing is, the good and bad parts have been together at all times. It’s been an extreme year, I think, a year of travelling and new experiences, of meeting very nice people, very nasty people. Most people aren’t specifically nice, or specifically nasty, but can be either if they want to be. A few, though, are at one extreme or the other; and luckily I know more of the former.
In which various things happen, and we listen to Thought For The Day
First Christmas present bought already, but I’m still going to have to devote the weekend to running around the county hoping desperately to find something inspirational. I’m not saying what I’ve already bought. It’s for my dad, and I don’t think he reads this place, but you never know.
In which things are uncompleted
We had a computer that was working fine. We switch it off. We move it. We plug it in. And it doesn’t work. At all. So dead, there’s nowhere to start looking for what to fix. God knows how we killed it.
In which things are expanding
As it was a nice weekend, I went off for a random amble around the neighbouring county, half just for fun, and half with an eye to shopping, to get a nice outfit for the next time I go out. And so, I found myself in a little independent clothing store near Cleckheaton,* the sort which still has a large part of the shop taken up by a big dressmakers’ workbench for alterations, repairs, customisation, and that sort of thing. That’s one of the good things about indie shops: they will often be happy to do that sort of thing for you, if they have skilled staff.
In which nothing gets bought
Well, I had planned to go shopping. I didn’t want to go to any record shops, because that always leads to me spending much more money that I’d intended. So, I was going to go to one of my favourite London shopping streets, Lower Marsh.
Trying to look pretty
I don’t wear much jewellery. Never have. I take after my mother, who who only wears her wedding ring and has never even had her ears pierced.
Or, buying a wedding guest outfit
This month I won £50 on the Premium Bonds, so today I thought I’d go and look for clothes, and maybe get some ideas for a wedding outfit. I know it’s only April and the wedding I’m going to is in August, but I wanted to be prepared. Anyway, I searched round every branch of Armstrong’s and didn’t find anything. I was thinking maybe some tweed trousers, but they’re a bit expensive. Part of the problem is that each of their shops has two or three racks of clothed attached to each wall, one about the other, so you can’t really see what’s way up near the ceiling. They have a ladder you can borrow, but I daren’t use it for fear I’ll fall over than thwack the assistant on the head, knocking over everything in the shop in the process. In any case, you can’t really browse through everything whilst you’re stood on top of a stepladder.
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