We went shopping yesterday. I was wanting to go to see Australia at the cinema, but the film is SO long, it would’ve depleted any chance to shop. So we just shopped.
I’ve been wanting to get slippers, so went into the cheapy shoe shop and they had some marked down to £2.49. That’ll do me! So I got myself a pair. Em’s been wanting Wellington’s so she could work on the allotment site. The store had wellies, but not in her size. I asked at the counter did they have any in the Em’s size (size 9) and the girl says to me “they start at size 11”. WTF? She went on “unless you want the designer ones like Disney or Spongebob” then I was like – in my head going “Oh, she must have thought I meant kiddies sizes” I said “No, I mean mens sizes” – and she just looked at me and said “Yeah”, then said “Oh, you’ve got two left slippers, hold on” and walked off to get my right slipper. When she came back, she didn’t pick up where she left off, so I’m STILL none the wiser if they were any size 9 mens wellies. I can’t imagine they’d have 8’s and 10’s but no 9’s! It left my rather perplexed. I’m sure she never had a second thought about it. How DO people like that get jobs? Anyway, on to Debenhams. Where I had two missions. One – to find some nice new towels – hopefully marked down in the sales. Success, yay!! Two lovely Christy towels marked down to half price. I was happy with those. The other was to find a Radley purse. Unlike when we got to the homewears bit and there were towels aplenty to chose from, the Radley purse section had been WIPED OUT! There were like 3 purses left and none of them took my fancy. There were more Foirelli bags than you could shake a stick at by comparison though. All these years being a Foirelli girl, but none of them really took my fancy, and most weren’t even discounted anyway. So, that’s why I ask, what economic downturn? Certain swathes of Debenhams had been completely wiped out! It was insane! After that we went to HMV, but no DVD’s took my fancy and not many things were marked down. Then on to Wilkinsons. Just bit and bobs from there. Restocking of food for the birds and little things like that. Into WH Smith to find a Playboy alarm clock, but it wasn’t there. Playboy I hear you say? Yes, but not from some weird kinkiness, but because the clock face is meant to have hands that glow in the dark. It’s a long story which I might write about in a future post. Suffice it to say, we lucked out. Lastly to Maplin’s to get some DVD+R’s. That was it, shopping done. Me with a broken back and aching feet. I SO need to lose weight. Here comes a resolution!Much Better.
That was a bad day the other day. I felt awful. I’m feeling much better now. Thank goodness. I’d been a bit worried about myself there. Thankfully it was just a pre-Christmas bump.
Just finished the last of the online food shop. That gets delivered tomorrow. I had to scoot around the other day when Gilly took us to Letchworth to get a mock (vegetarian) turkey roll from Holland and Barrett. Flippin’ £4.25 it cost! It’ll barely feed me and Em. Just enough for both of us. I’m totally splurging on nice food this year. We had a bleak Xmas last year, so this one will be special. And we’ve got alcohol too! I got a bottle of Disaronno from Morrisons the other day (almond liqueur, like marzipan) and I’ve also got a bottle of Midori (melon liqueur) coming and a couple of packs of snowballs (advocaat mixer). Sssooo looking forward to the Doctor Who Christmas special. I’m counting down the day to Xmas by the number of days left before I get to see the special! That’s bad! I’ve got plans to go and see Australia at the cinema as well. I saw the Newsnight Review on the BBC and it was slated by Germaine Greer and other members on the review panel. It sounded SO bad, it’s good! Just a little bit of bits and bobs today. Laters…ASDA Luton’s Improvements and Little Booze Lost.
For five years now, the ASDA store in Luton has been our local supermarket. When we still had a car it was easy for us to go elsewhere and we more often than not shopped at Morrisons or even other ASDA stores instead of our own.
Without a car we’ve had little choice but to shop there. Most of the time we just couldn’t face it and would shop with ASDA online instead. Especially for out main fortnightly shop. Luton’s ASDA was always cramped, lacking in certain items and was just generally an unpleasant shopping experience. Early in the Autumn, the store began an expansion. It made shopping a little inconvenient at times. And at one point the store was closed completely for an EXCRUCIATING 90 hours! But for the last few weeks the store has been finished and fully operational again. I got to see the completed work for the first time today. Wow! What an improvement! A store you finally want to shop in! The isles have been widened and better stocked. There’s now a small pharmacy inside. It was just a muc
h more pleasant shopping experience. You didn’t feel rushed. The store felt roomy. You didn’t feel pushed for time…it was FAB!
We did a stop-gap shop there. We filled up two “old grey-haired lady” shopping trolleys with stuff from the store. A good list of items for just a tad over £50 that’ll see us through probably until the end of next week. It was good. We caught the bus home as we had a lot of stuff (even though we’re only 10 mins from the shop – Em would’ve walked, but it’s a big hill for me). As we were walking from the bus stop, just before the corner to our street, I heard crying – not sobbing – but sort of like yelling. At first, I thought it was a kid, I stopped and looked behind me and there was a cat, running to me, meowing at the top of its lungs! It ran up to me and was just looking up at me meowing so loudly. I bent down and patted it. Then as I went to walk off, it started following me! We encouraged it to follow us. All the way it was meowing. Poor little thing!
So we got home with little “Heart-breaker” in tow. Em gave her a bit of Chris’s food and she stayed around, all the time meowing really vocally. We locked Chris away in the bedroom and were trying to console Heart-breaker. She spent the next 4 hours hanging around, meowing really loudly through the door when she was locked out. I was REALLY starting to get worried. Em even took a walk down to the newsagents to see if there were any lost cat notices in the window, to no avail. Eventually poor Heart-breaker seemed to disappear. Hope she’s okay and found her way home, wherever it is?!
She just appeared from nowhere when I first saw her!
Dude, Where’s My Bra?
We’ve hired a car for the weekend. And while Em was off collecting it, I was having a shower. Once I got out the shower, I was getting dressed. I went to my underwear draw to get my best bra, but oh, my bra wasn’t in the draw? No matter, I thought, it must be around here somewhere…
I searched in EVERY place feasible to no avail. I was starting to get flustered. IT’S MY BEST BRA! I’ve only had it a few months. I had some not very suitable “back up” bras – one too small for me, the other with a hook that had snapped. Well I had no choice, so I wore the one with the about to bust hook. I have a ritual, see. I don’t wear my bras when I’m at home. It’s a thing I got from my mum. It just helps to lengthen the life of the bra. So, when I *do* go out and wear my bra, when I come home, I take it off. I normally leave it on the end of the bed to “air off” a while, then put it back in my underwear draw later. The last time I wore it was about a week ago (yes, I go out that often). I remember coming home, taking it off and draping it on the end of the bed, and then… I’VE LOST MY BRA!!!! Have you seen it? On to the car. We’d planned a trip to Cambridge and then perhaps Whipsnade Zoo the next day. But I think we’ll change tack to Hitchin tomorrow and then perhaps a trip to Shepreth on Sunday. We’ve spent a bit of dosh today, spoiling Chrissy and myself. I’ve got an early birthday present.
Random!
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR! Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Got out and about this week. We hired a car for the day and went shopping. First of all we went to Frosts, a garden centre in Milton Keynes. Some of the shelves were cleared and getting filled with Xmas decorations. IT’S BLOODY SEPTEMBER!!!
There’s another garden centre just a few hundred yards down the road from there, Wyvale. They were doing the same bloody thing!
Anyway, we wanted to look around as we’ve got ourselves a council allotment (strip of land on council property we can use for growing plants/flowers/fruit and veg on). It only cost us about £17.50 for the year. All we had to do was make a £2.50 deposit for keys to get onto the site. It’s a BIG plot of land. I’ll provide a pic later on.
There’s quite a bit of weed on the plot and it’s over grown, so we’re trying to weed it without having to deturf the soil. Em says the soil is rock hard, and not of the best quality, so I’m not sure how we’re going to go growing on it.
We went to Morrison’s supermarket after the garden centre trips. AGAIN more Xmas stuff on the shelf already! Found a lovely cooking magazine there with some lovely recipes. Last night I had a chicken noodle stir-fry. Skinless, boneless chicken thighs mixed with red bell pepper, onion, garlic, chili, beansprouts, straight-to-wok noodles and oyster sauce. It was really yummy, and hot. I was careful only to use the chili flesh and NOT the seeds though, so it was manageable.
There some more fab recipes for us to try in it that can easily be adapted to vegetarian dishes.
Got some DVDs to watch. A BBC drama series called State of Play, with Blackpool star (and soon-to-be Doctor Who Xmas special star) David Morrissey, previous DW Xmas special star (and Life on Mars star) John Simm and Bill Nighy, among other luminaries. It was a highly acclaimed series, so I’m hoping it’ll be good.
Got the first series of Nighty Night to watch too. It was SO dark! I sort of missed it when it first went out and would catch bits of it here and there, but would like to see the whole thing proper.
The other disc is the movie Music and Lyrics with Hugh Grant and my mate Drew (Barrymore). Just fancied seeing it.
I’m SO peed off with the DVD rental place. Just when I got half-way through getting Medium series 2 from the friend of a friend of a friend, they get series 2 on DVD!!! I’ve added it to my rental queue though, as the “friends” copies are not the best.
Watched Ugly Betty last night. SSSOOOO loving that Betty’s back! Oh, and Mock The Week was on too, with Frankie Boyle being his usual dark self!
Sorry, this one’s a bit of a random post.
Bye…
I Just Got Me A Pick-me-up!
I love the way it makes it look like Chris is trying to nick my choccies. She hates all human food, and I’d never give her chocolate anyway. My previous cat in Oz, Tiger, she LOVED chocolate and I’d give her bits, not knowing at that time it was poisonous!
Sofa Heaven
From this…
Shopping, shopping, shopping.
Went out with Em and Gilly (my father-in-law) today to Letchworth for some shopping. We stopped by Lidl first for some budget shopping. Stocked up on grape juice, baked beans (I love the baked beans they sell) and other non-perishables. We bought some vanilla creme wafers from there which we tried when we got home. YUM!
Then it was on to Morrison’s where I stocked up stuff that I like most from there, their facial tissues – cheap boxes at 35p each, but don’t come out of the box all attached together like other cheap brands (ASDA Smartprice being an example) and they are quite soft, for 35p. Got some cream of asparagus cup-a-soup, some cous-cous snack pots, among other things. Sweet things included sticky toffee trifle and lovely, lovely Baklawa, which I had been hankering for for quite a number of weeks now, and they were divine!
We hire a van tomorrow and have a second attempt to buy a new sofa. Hopefully things will work out tomorrow and around this time tomorrow we’ll be in possession of a new sofa, and possibly a chair as well. We were given the money to cover the lounge today as money that was owed us, so we might (if the sofa is significantly smaller than the one we have now) extend to getting a chair as well. Where else but Ikea could you buy a sofa and chair for £108?
Just a short and sweet one for now. I’ll leave you with an image of the sofa and potential chair…
No DT’s over DT.
I think I’ve already come out of the worst of it. The DT’s for DT have subsided. I still think the man is WELL hot, but just the total irrationally obsessive behaviour has subsided a lot.
Still totally hooked into the theories of how this series of Doctor Who is going to end though. There are so many theories going around. Like (regarding the regeneration) the Doctor will split in two (two Tennant Doctors), a second Doctor played by either Christopher Eccelston (back to 9th Doc) or David Morrissey will happen. Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) is a Time Lord…I could go on and on. It’s a LONG wait til Saturday. Some people are convinced that David Tennant continues to play the Doctor as they’ve seen filming in Cardiff in which he’s involved in. But Em made a very valid point that if you (the BBC production crew) didn’t want leaks, you’d still have DT on set, even if he was no longer involved in the process? Anyway. there are more pressing things to get on with…like actually becoming bankrupt. Today is the day, says Em. The procrastinating is over. It’s bankruptcy time! We’ve got an online grocery shop arriving soon. And yesterday we actually went out – I mean outside – in the sun! We went into town to pay some bills, get some things, etc. I had to pay our broadband and TV license. I nearly had a heart attack! I had £25 to pay on the broadband and £11.80 to pay on the TV license. I paid the broadband first then handed the assistant the TV license card and said “And can I pay £11.80 on this please”, she said “80 or 18” I said “80” (I thought she was confirming the final figure). Anyway, she swipes the card, puts in the figure then says “That’ll be £118” (which isn’t even 80 and 25 quid together anyway, WTF?). I just stood there dumbfounded. Then she said to be “What did you want to pay on it again, 80 or 18?” I said “£11.80” and she was like “Oh!” and I was thinking “Yeah, give me a friggin heart attack, woman!” Worst of all was when she finally got the figure right and it was time to pay, she had to use a calculator to add 25 and 11.80 together!!!! Lord have mercy! You have NEVER seen queues as long as we get at the town’s post office. You lose the will to live just LOOKING at it sometimes! Poor Em had to line up so we could put money on our pre-paid credit card and get proof of posting on some DVD’s. It took her 20 minutes to get served. We bought a pair of shoes each. We have matching shoes! How autistic are we going to look going out together in matching shoes? There were some cheap T’s too, so Em got two of them. We went wild spending a whole £14 on ourselves! Our mall is SO damn overcrowded. I get agoraphobia just walking around it, it’s so bloody full of people. And there’s never really a time of day when it ISN’T swarming with people. But, it was nice to get out and actually mingle for a while. Today is going to be WELL hot. TWENTY SEVEN degrees man!! Woah, has summer returned? And it’s Wimbledom time as well. Unprecedented! Anyway, I’m off.
Burger Overkill!
I saw this on TV the other night and thought, “My Lord, no wonder we’re a national of lard arses!”
This is the Angus 6 pack…YES, 6 mini burgers in one!!! I have to admit, to my bad, BAD, evil junk food-loving mind it looks VERY good (and I do prefer BK to Micky D’s). And I think I’d be sad enough to keep it in one piece to make it feel like I’m having a GIGANTIC burger.
I assume if BK are trying to promote “responsible” eating with this that this would be shared by a minimum of two people? I can’t see any evidence on the web site of any notion of “sharing” this burger with others. Perhaps the MINI burgers look deceptively big. I didn’t see a price for it, but considering a normal BK burger can be about £3 or £4, this will on doubt be about £3.99 or even £4.99 perhaps…maybe I’m wrong.
All I know is, it’s overkill!! Having this 6 pack won’t keep your body’s “6 pack” for long!