A Useful Day Trip

JJ and I had a plan.


It was a good plan.


We decided to take a whole day, get the dog visitor in to see the monsters and go to Lakeside shopping center and do ALL of our christmas shopping in the one day. Every last present, all bought and then we would wrap them the next day and voila, we would be well on the way to being ready for christmas. We also wanted to get JJ a new suit for his new job and have a look at cameras for my christmas present. At the absolute very least, we HAD to have got presents for Paul and Lauraine as we are seeing them next weekend.

We were very excited not only by the plan, but also with a full day of wandering round shops, something we don't do often to avoid spending too much money. As a result, we aimed leave at 7.30, drive round the M25, have a Maccyd's breakfast (we go to the best places) and then be ready to go when the shops open at 9.00. We left a little late (and as you can see below, less than happy about the time - JJ isn't asleep in that secnd piccy but I think he may have rathered that he was) but were soon on our way and the Maccyd's was devine but the hot chocolate was rough. While eating, we looked at the store plan and worked out a plan of attack, deciding to work all the way along the ground floor then back along the top floor.

So, off we headed to battle and glory. We decide that, as we were obviously going to be SWAMPED with ideas, we will make notes of ideas in JJ's new phone (see below) and then will come back once we go round once and buy the best suggestion for each person. The first place we find a place selling cameras (Jessops) we find the two cameras we were interested in and, to our joy, the one that I really like is not only cheaper than we found it online, but also has a spare lens included! Jessops are apparently in financial trouble at the moment so that probably explains it.

Once we get to the other end of the store and realise we have very little ideas and none that I would actually buy, we decide to just buy stuff as we go along is we deem it good enough. We DO buy some bits for the van and all of the christmas cards that we need, except for Mums as all of the mother cards are rubbish this year. But other than that, we don't find much inspiration. In fact, despite the fact that we are enjoying wandering round the shops and having a great time giggling and mucking around, we are both a bit disappointed by the sheet amount of teacky tat that seems to constitute Christmas gift ideas this year. I think we are both getting old and just don't find edible posing pouches or shddily made keepsake boxes covered in rhinestones particularly festive. Youth today... :D

We stopped at the Wii store and had a quick go at the golf game which JJ did quite well in, but I have already bought him his main birthday pressie (which I am really excited about) so he will have to whistle for it.

Around this time we stop for a hot chocolate and JJ's glands on the right side of his jaw come up quite uncomfortably. He broke a tooth on that side the other day and it has been fine up to now, just a bit sensitive to hot and cold, but now decided to act up. We headed to Boots to get painkillers and luckily he has an appointment to sort it out next week anyway. We then headed back to Boots as JJ's eyes were in need of drops and stuff. He headed to the loo to pop them in and I sat by the Wii stall and admired the gigantic camp chandaliers that were strewn around the place.

We looked for suits in almost every shop that sold them and, despite looking at suits that were up to £350 we couldn't find out that John liked and fitted. Finally we found one, only to find that the only jacket that they had had marks on the front so we carried on looking until, much to my delight we found a suit that looked great and fit him AND was only £99, we mere fraction of what I was expecting to pay.

We then finish going round the center and head to get something to eat. The Christmas tree outside Ikea was huge, impressive but slightly spoiled by the green metal fence around the bottom, made of the type of fencing used to screen off building sites. Having said that, the photos don't really do it justice as, what you can't see, is that random bulbs would flare up and then fade, giving a gorgeous twinkling effect.

We head to Currys to look at cameras but they don't have the dual lense version so head to ILVA. We are quite looking forward to this as we have been told that it is a more classy version of IKEA and we both like IKEA as it is interesting products that you don't really see elsewhere, with an interesting style and, if nothing else, they have lovely swedish food! What we found was a cold, sterile furniture store which, unlike IKEA (which we went to later) was almost empty, with nice furniture, but nothing you couldn't get anywhere else, not any higher quality than IKEA but VERY expensive. For example, one thing we saw that we liked was a flexible tray thingy that moulded itself to the sofa arm, something that I have seen elsewhere, but NEVER at £85! What is more, the few christmas decorations for sale around the place for sale were HIDEOUS. The Pier was a bit better, but I have never really understood the need for ornaments that don't mean anything to you, like something that you buy while on holiday as a souvenir (for example, we have four pictures on the wall in the lounge - a giant aboriginal style painting done by a friend to thank JJ for designing their website, and two framed posters one for Chicago, which we saw while in New York and is signed by the cast members and the other for Mamma Mia!, which was my surprise birthday trip a while ago and a second picture of New York which we bought while we were there). To add insult to injury, in Ilva poor John developed an acid stomach (the man is falling apart) so we bought our one perchase in Ilva, as milkshake to try and settle it, which, thank goodness, eventually worked.

We headed on to some other stores, looking at cameras but no where actually seemed to actually have any in stock! We then headed to Asda to look for a new rug, ages ago we bought a really cheap one from there for our lounge and it is great as it doesn't matter if the dogs ruin it and, when they make it really dirty I just shove it in the washing machine. They only had 2 types of rugs left and they weren't suitable. We tried various other places to no avail so, finally, after a lot of prompting on my part, headed to Ikea. Unlike ILVA, even at 6.30pm, IKEA was very busy. We, as usual, enjoyed looking round, JJ taking every opportunity to "try out" sofas and chairs and each time getting him out of them became just a leeetle bit harder. We found a couple of things - a jug to replace the jug I melted to the hob earlier this year, a couple of pastic boxes for holding individual sarnies so I don't keep on having to use plastic bags for JJ's packed lunch and some more ice trays.

It was now just after 8 and we were on our last legs so we headed home. JJ was very tired but wouldn't let me drive but unfortunately didn't watch the petrol guage and we were nearly out of fuel. We turned off at Maidenhead and looked for a petrol station, while I swore at JJ's new phone as I couldn't make it work properly. We then headed back home, via Sainsburys and collapsed on the sofa with a pair of very silly dogs.

Our mission was only a partial sucess, we got a suit but only a few pressies and not the one that we really HAD to get, Pauls christmas present. Ahhhh, well...