We have been on a reckless spending spree.
Today was our last day in the big city, and we resolved to make it as exciting as possible.
We went shopping.
I can’t tell you how exciting this is if you live in the sort of place where shopping happens all of the time. In Windermere we have got the ironmonger and the post office and just occasionally there is a trip to Asda when we have run out of soap powder and bin liners.
Today’s shopping trip was not at all like any of that.
Manchester is massive, and stuffed full of the most intriguing little alleyways. You can get a tattoo or buy underwear with fluff stuck to it, and in Piccadilly Gardens this morning there was a little market which smelled as appetising as it is possible for a market to smell. They were cooking spiced lamb and burritos and fried chicken and wraps. I don’t know what a burrito is but they smelled divine.
We did not buy any of the street food because of just having had sausage sandwiches for breakfast, but we stood next to it all and breathed in and out as deeply as we could for a while, in order to keep the happiness of the smell inside us.
After that we went off to be reckless.
We went to a computer shop, which was thrilling. Of course we have got perfectly functioning computers, but it was exciting to look at all of the new ones that can do so much more, and which have such incredibly clear pictures. My eyesight is not what it used to be, and I appreciated this very much.
We went here in order that Oliver could buy a new gaming mouse for his computer.
This is a thing that has got different sort of clicks to his ordinary mouse, and also lights up with a red and blue light. He was very pleased indeed with it, and is upstairs running it over his desk as we speak.
After that we explored the shopping centre. I bought some new vests for the perimeter fence in the winter, and also some jeans. This was because when the washing machine started to have the wrong sort of revolution, I discovered that I did not have enough trousers to complete a full week without washing them. I had got four pairs, and one of those had suffered a paint misfortune which had left them with seemingly ineradicable scarlet and yellow blobs all over them. I do not mind this at all, a pair of trousers in which the zip still works is a success as far as I am concerned, but Mark said that they could not be considered to be smart going-out-of-the-house attire.
Mark bought a scented candle for the bedroom. This was partly for me really, because I share the bedroom as well, but Mark likes them as much as I do and we bought the flavour that he liked best which I thought made it his candle really.
Anyway I am moving into the camper van next week.
Lucy bought some watercolour paints and some new sketch pads. We had to go to a special art shop for these, because she is very particular about the sort of paints that she uses. I have found that this is important as well. If you do not get paints that are of a good quality then they do not blend or cover properly, and then they fade off and have to be painted all over again. You can try as hard as you like with rubbish paints, but you will never get the gorgeous brilliance that you get with the ones for which you have reluctantly shelled out a tenner.
I was very pleased with myself for having realised this, it made me feel like a real artist, which I am not. Five minutes conversation with Actual Head Boy’s father was more than enough to make that very obvious indeed, please do not allow me to mislead you on this subject. I am merely expensively pretentious.
After that we had had enough of shopping, and in any case nothing is very much fun when you have got to carry shopping bags.
We set off back to the camper van and one of us, you might be able to guess which, had the inspired idea that perhaps we could just stop in at the beautiful lovely Midland and have a last farewell to Manchester cocktail, as a special last half term occasion thing.
We borrowed some money from the children and went in.
We love the Midland. We sat in their beautiful lounge and drank cocktails and felt happy. When I am fabulously rich I am going to live there. Oliver said that I would be bored, but I bet I wouldn’t. I could eat sausage sandwiches for breakfast and gorgeous-smelling street food from the markets, and buy new vests every day and go to the theatre at nights.
There can be no happier way to spend your time.
It has been the most fantastic holiday.
