Buying shoes and losing cars

The Husband and I went into a nearby town this morning for a bit of a mooch. Because parking can be a bit of a pain, we opted to 'park and ride', which meant I had to take a travel pill before we left. Rather pathetic for a ten minute journey, but buses and I do not get on. I do enjoy the people-watching aspect of buses, though. There was a family sitting close to us that made for good watching. 'Who would like one of my Swiss herbal drops?' the mum asked her family. Any normal child would have replied with an, 'Ugh, no way,' but her two young sons didn't look like they'd had a sugar-rush for some time, so held their hands out. 'You can't have one, Archie,' she said to the youngest. 'It will get stuck in your windpipe. You can have something later.' When young Archie's eyes filled, she said, 'It's because I love you, my darling. Mummy doesn't want you to asphyxiate.' Mummy deserved a slap, in my opinion. Mummy loves you so much, she'll offer sweets to everyone, but won't let you have one. Makes me glad I was such a bad mother. I may have risked my children choking to death, but at least they were all treated the same. 

Son Number One and The Girlfriend were also in town, but they traveled by train, as they were leaving later, and a one-way ticket was only 10p cheaper than a return. Son Number One organises his life around food, although you wouldn't know it, as he's as thin as a stick. 'We're getting a Frankie and Benny's breakfast first,' he told us, 'so we need to be in town before 11 o'clock. Then we might get one of those ice-cream shakes in the cinema. We'll probably grab a Subway before leaving. Any idea what's for tea?' And I thought he was joking - I should have known better. 

Photo courtesy of m_bartosch/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The object of my son's desire. 

We bumped into them a couple of times as we wandered, and were given orders to try a particular Chinese restaurant he approved of (which we did, as it was only polite...). 

I was allowed to look around the Doc Marten shop, which had recently opened. 'Just looking,' I assured The Husband, who looked aghast at the prices (I buy mine from ebay shops). As I looked longingly at a rather lovely flowery pair, he said: 'Why don't you get them?' Now, The Husband is notoriously careful with money (the main reason we managed to pay our mortgage off last year. If it had been down to me, we'd have mountains of books but no house to keep them in.), so I said yes before he had a chance to change his mind. His canniness reappeared when he asked the shop assistant if they offered student discount, though. Which they did, so he was happy with the thought that he'd got some money off. 

Being the good wife, I asked if there was anything he wanted to get. He replied that he fancied a huge bar of chocolate from Hotel Chocolat, so I got off fairly lightly there. 

Catching the bus back to the car park, there were no interesting people to watch, but lots of nice houses to hanker after. Embarrassingly, when we got off the bus, we couldn't find the car. Now, this is why we should have kept the flower stickers on it. A car covered in flowers, butterflies and bees is easy to spot. A small silver car, parked amongst lots of other silver cars is easy to lose (not loose, as many Facebookers insist on writing). Hoping that no-one was watching us walk up and down the rows of cars, we spent nearly ten minutes muttering, 'I thought we were more in that direction?' before we finally tracked it down. We need a more distinctive car. If we had a VW Camper decorated with rainbows and Greenpeace stickers, this would not have happened. 

Anyway, it was a good day. We did forget to buy more travel pills and a get well card for a friend, though (we like her, it just wasn't written on the list). This evening, The Husband and Son Number Two are off to play pool and darts at the cricket club, Son Number One will probably be eating something, and I'll no doubt be watching House.