Out and About.

Another grey day, mostly dry with a little rain this evening. I'm feeling quite exhausted after a day spent gadding about town. In the morning I met up with my group of  ex-colleague friends for coffee at the garden centre. We were back at the Ashford (Trelawney) Garden Centre which is handy to get to with good parking. I was a little late in arriving because when I headed for my usual cut-through up a steep back road from Muddiford I was faced with a Road Closed sign. So instead of saving time I then had to go back all the way into town and out again. There were 6 of us this time and Claire brought along one of her twins on the divide and conquer principle. Albie age 2 was very well behaved and sat colouring nicely at the table. When they were leaving he enthusiastically blew kisses from his hand with his mouth and arm movements getting bigger each time. So sweet.

After a lovely morning spent chatting I headed into town with a whole list of places to visit. At the library I reserved the next 2 Game of Thrones books. Unlike all the previous books the one I was returning didn't have details for the rest of the series in the back so the librarian had to search on line. Even then it was a bit confusing as which books came next in the series. I've just read book 4 but the next 2 books aren't chronological but follow different characters concurrently with book 4 and are sometimes listed as parts 1 and 2 of book 5. Well I've paid over my money (£1 for each reservation) and shall wait for an email telling me they have got them in. A couple of things I am looking for still haven't appeared in the shops but I did buy a large rug, basically a bound bit of carpet 2m x 3m that I can put down in the conservatory when people come to view the place. I also looked for some large indoor plants to 'dress' the conservatory but in all the garden centres I visited I could only find small plants in fancy pots for gifts. There are still a couple of places I can try. In Tesco's I treated myself to these acrylic tumblers. I'm not mad about the colour in the bottom but I've been looking for ages for some replacements for the tumblers we've had for so long they are scratched and old looking. I prefer to have acrylic tumblers for the many alfresco meals we have in this lovely sunny climate (optimism!)

By the time I got home I needed a rest before doing a token house job - moving all the boxes of figures from the conservatory into a spare room and bringing in some sculptures and orchids to give more of a conservatory feel.