Right, where was I?...
Yesterday was most notable for me defrosting cod fillets and assuming Kai would prefer a pizza: on finding there were three fillets in the pack, and sprog saying how nice the fish smelt as it was grilling, I asked if he'd like one.
Yes please! he said, and wolfed it down. [bemused] OK, so it's best not to assume anything any more...
Knowing I had to get up at 6 am [shudder] I went to bed at 12, expecting to have problems getting to sleep even though I was tired. Would have been OK if Quyn hadn't started barking at 2 am, wanting to be let out - then again 10 minutes after Ken had let him back in... Still, dragged meself awake and got us down to the busstop in time to get the right bus (peak time FirstDay tickets) and everything went beautifully smoothly: my timing was great, all the buses on time, and we arrived at John Cabot nicely relaxed. Kai went into assembly with the rest of the new intake and I wandered off to explore.
Heh. There are lots and
lots of second hand shops and specialist giftshops (of the 'New Age'-y sort I like but rarely purchase from, although today I found a handful of Yule presents and a gorgeous selenite worry-egg for Kai), and just one stop up the road is the Kingswood Shopping Centre, a small but useful mall. I picked up a terracotta plant pot for my aloe vera and a handful of cat and dog treats from the branch of Wilkinson's, and tried a chicken and ham pasty from a local bakery.
Found CD singles of Fat Les'
Vindaloo (yes, I know, I have strange and eclectic tastes) and U2's
Kiss Me Kill Me (please see previous parentheses) in
Age Concern (and so they should be selling CDs like that!). Further up the road there was a quirky gift shop (can't remember the name but I will forever remember it as the shop in which I was subjected to a thoroughly bizarre conversation about Pamela Anderson's breasts by the - female - American owner...) with extremely cute winged mermaids (the wings are attached with Velcro so can be taken off): soft fabric tails - properly fish-shaped, none of this hidden legs nonsense - lovely ceramic torsos and movable arms, and pretty faces with long ringletted hair. I particularly liked the green tail/red hair combination, but at £9.99 they were too expensive for a spontaneous treat.
And then... (pause for drumroll) I found the teensy indoor market with the second-hand DVDs and books...
They had
The Polar Express (which Kai loves and I can't stand) and
Constantine (which is background brain candy) for £3.99 each. Well, they had a lot of other DVDs too, but those were the ones that caught my eye. Grabbed them and carried on looking: found a Gibson cyberpunk novel for me, then thought I'd check out the kids' books...
[big happy grin] Five Anthony Horowitz
Alex Ryder books, £2.45 each (RRP £6.99). All of them except number five (
Scorpia) which we'll have to buy separately, but we can live with that. So I put the DVDs back and grabbed the books instead. The elderly bloke at the counter grinned and commented along the lines 'you'd rather read than watch TV.', and I nodded and added the copy of
The DaVinci Code to the tally (it was waiting to be put out on the shelves, hadn't even been priced yet: got it for £1.45...)
On leaving the place I rang Ken - who promptly said to go back and buy the DVDs anyway!
I arrived back at John Cabot 15 minutes before the sprogs were due out with
aching legs - walked miles today - so so much for wondering what I was going to do for three hours!
And Kai? He came bombing out saying he'd had a fantastic time, really enjoyed it (except for the German class), has made some friends in his Tutor Group, and has some homework to do before the term starts (making a bookmark, an acrostic of his name)! They had English, then expressive arts, then break (with chocolate chip cookies and apple juice), then German then maths (which he particularly enjoyed). So worries over - looks like he's going to be absolutely fine.
Back into town, where I found a vase for my fabric
cymbidium in a St Pete's Hospice charity shop. To date it's been sitting in a glass vase by the silver mirror, but I wanted it on the orchid shelf: the pale green looks much better against the dark green wall than the pale mirror wall. The vase is wooden and was made in Romania, according to the sticker on the bottom. It's not perfect, but it looks OK, and will cause a lot less damage than the glass vase if it gets knocked or blown off the shelf!
We arrived back around 2 pm, and are both knackered now. Ken's cooking my home-made beefburgers for dinner, then I'm having a nap so I can get some writing done tonight.
Oh - one of the goldfish, Ginger, Kai says, was still in the pond this afternoon. Floating dead on the surface, admittedly, but obviously not eaten by the heron. We're wondering now if any of the others have survived, lurking under the weed.
And
à propos of nothing, I have a dentist appointment tomorrow, oh joy...
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 6:30 pm
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