finally

we have shoes, well actually boots, for Big. I’ve lost count of how many shoe shops we’ve been in and didn’t even try to count how many pairs of shoes we’ve tried on – it’s taken 3 weekends to sort this out! And then, icing on the cake, machine refused my credit card! The cheek of it, bill was cleared just this week, and wasn’t anywhere near the limit anyway 🙁 Then I’m standing looking at one of those horrid machines, trying to remember the pin code for a different card…

It *was* quite an expensive day. We went to Hobbycraft who were having a demonstration day on card making with parchment paper. She was completely surrounded by ppl the first twice we tried to watch, so we occupied ourselves buying stuff… 😉 I’ve got the wire to try that necklace now! Then we finally got her all to ourselves, and she explained how to emboss with parchment paper, and let Big have a go. I can see that working really well, so we went back into the shop (we hadn’t been through the checkout) and put some more stuff in the basket… I have been doing lots of overtime – seems only fair to spend some of it on fun stuff!

I did object however to their computer calculating the prices on their half price items incorrectly – I checked my receipt on the way out and took a sharp turn in the direction of the customer service desk. 8.97 with 50% off is not 4.97. Probably took nearly 10 minutes to sort it out and refund me a pound – not sure whether that was really worthwhile!

And after all of that, we headed off to M’hll itself, past the remnants of the accident that had held us up on the way in. (It looked like a fairly straightforward shunt, van into back of car, but there was a fireengine, three police cars, and while we were queueing on the opposite side of the road an ambulance came up behind to join the fun).

First stop was Game, where we discovered it was the game we were trying to play in the newly aquired gameboy that wasn’t playing, so we bought a couple of others instead. We are now the proud owners, as a family of Babar: To The Rescue (GBA), and Barbie SuperPack: Barbie Secret Agent/Barbie Groovy Games (GBA). Felt hugely ignorant as I double checked while we were buying that I was buying the right type of game for the console we now have 😳

From Game to the icecream stand – Small had wanted one on the way out of Hobbycraft and as he’d been so good in there, I thought it only fair to oblige him. Takes ages for a three year old to eat an icecream, and boy can he make a mess of himself in the process. Was mopping ineffectually at him with a couple of tissues when the woman sitting next to us leant over and said “would you like another tissue?” I was very grateful 😀

And on to Clarks who were having comedy moments with their customer queueing system 😕 But eventually we got her some boots (I’d try to link to Clarks site to show them, but from experience I know that’s a fairly pointless idea). Which brings me back to where this blogpost started 🙂

And now we’re home. Small is watching the gameboy (not sure he’s *quite* got the hang of it yet, but he’s happy). Big has had a game, they’ve both had tea, and now she’s busy embossing and decorating parchment paper to make cards. They look really good – think we might have to quite quickly expand our equipment and go on to making holes in it and stuff.

Tim is off and away tonight (not 100% sure where he is just now, but fairly sure he won’t be back this evening, 😉 ) so we’re having a mummy day here. And jolly fun it is too 🙂