Sailing

As you might expect, I'm *loving* my time off. Not that I've really done anything, mind you - I just enjoy doing mundane things when I'm not at work. Every now and then I think I should take a day to go up town and explore museums and galleries and stuff like that, but then the mere thought of it just tires me out, which kind of defeats the idea of taking time off, and I think I'll do it next time I have a weeks holiday.

So, major bonus - my car, in the words of the guy at the garage, "sailed through" it's MOT - *thank-the-mighty-lord-Shatner* because I was braced and ready for a stupidly expensive bill for something I would never have expected could've been wrong with it; seriously, I had visions of me sprawled across the bonnet of a new 3-Series in the dealership (not in a sexy way) while bawling my eyes out. Anyway, I got it into the garage by about 9am, then headed to the Mini dealer to book my Clubman test drive for Saturday (must remember to hint to them that it's my birthday just on the off chance they throw some Mini freebies my way). After that, and bearing in mind that they said the MOT would take about three hours, I decided to walk to Uxbridge, which is about three miles away, to have a look around the shoppies.

Now, I haven't been shopping to Uxbridge in *ages* and using this visit as an example of what to expect I probably won't be back for fair ol' while. I used to love going here, but it now has a general feel of "meh" to it - like the entire town has just taken a really deep, weary sigh. I think part of the problem is that they opened a shiny new shopping centre a few years back directly opposite the old one. All that happened, though, was that the existing shops in the old centre just upped and went to the new one - because it's shinier - leaving the old one looking like some chav-tastic breeding ground for pound shops. Feeling a tad depressed by that I went for a coffee, where despite having my iPod turned up to the max, I could still hear a bunch of scrummies* in sweat pants and velour hoodies squealing about their aerobics session while chowing down on double-chocolate muffins.

I promptly began walking back to the garage, where I spent an hour reading both the Daily Mail and The Times, which gave me a good opportunity to catch up in a reasonably balanced way on the state of the country (still messy), and come to the conclusion that, in my opinion, whatever way scientists claim they're preserving Tutankhamun's body for the better, I still think, at the end of the day, that that was once a living, breathing person, and I don't think he should be put out on display; his treasures - fascinating, yes; him? No - have some respect.

Anyway, probably the most upsetting part of the day occurred while I was walking back to the garage and I stopped off at a petrol station to buy a choccy bar. Upon leaving the shop and opening the wrapper I discovered that the bar was actually broken in two, and half of it promptly fell on the ground. I know the 10 second rule should apply in such circumstances, but it was a grimy forecourt and I didn't want to appear trampy, so I tutted and walked off. That kind of sucked. I wonder, in hindsight, if I could've taken it back and claimed faulty goods?

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Despite saying in my last post that I was having a haircut on Wednesday, it was actually today, so I'm kind of glad I remembered that before rocking up there tomorrow. I'm now in possession of an awesome scruffy-dude haircut which I would gladly show you, but seeing as I haven't had a shower yet I've still got bits of hair on my face and I wouldn't want to give you the impression that I have an excessively-hairy forehead. Oh, and I also started my Christmas shopping (organised - yay, LOL!); I even flirted a little with a middle-aged lady in a card shop, and joked with her that the Easter stuff would be out soon. Turns out that my joke wasn't actually that funny - she assured me that all the Easter cards were in the back of the shop ready to be put out on shelves just after Christmas.

*sigh*


*Scrummies = school-run mummies