friday i’m in love…
Black Friday, that is. As deep rooted and complete as my loathing for the wholesale hijacking of other nations’ customs and traditions undoubtedly is, any event that allows me to both spend and save money at the same time by providing exuberant discounts on things I had already planned to buy gets my vote, and as with last year’s bargain-fest I managed a sterling effort, not least the shiny new Samsung tablet I’m typing on right now as well as most of the Christmas shopping, more (you can never have too much) wireless audio kit and finally some lingerie that fits – yay!
The tablet took two attempts thanks to Curry’s Reserve & Collect service falling at the first hurdle by not Reserving anything so there were none left by the time I arrived – well done, Curry’s! The requirements on the Collect side were met with predictable efficiency and entirely devoid of mishap, but since these were all at my end and involved no input at all from Curry’s it hardly counts, does it? It’s fair to say that I expressed my disappointment robustly and with vigour (at least all the vigour I could muster after a lengthy walk in the freezing cold) and left with a specially ordered replacement (necessitating a second trip and another long walk, but it didn’t do my step count any harm) plus an extra discount that I spent on a consolation bottle of cherry brandy – a perennial favourite of mine not least because it tastes exactly like Benylin used to way back when before they took out all the good stuff – and an unfeasibly huge Tomahawk steak from the Lidl over the road, so all’s well that ends well and thankfully the rest, bar a quick pickup from the strange and unsettling new Argos above the big Sainsbury’s, is home delivery. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
As the eagle eyed will have already noticed, further festive preparations are underway with the annual reappearance of the Christmas page which this year began – as is also the tradition – with the related ritual of me swearing I couldn’t put it up again until I’d swapped the old picture for a newer one – definitely next year! The main gist is all there; a change of plan from the last couple of years with London back to it’s original pre-Christmas slot (not least because spending Boxing Day packing a suitcase and organising turkey into tupperwares prior to an early night is no way to live), I’ll be back for the Friday and all the rest fits in nicely either side. In addition, and since yet another handy feature of the Black Friday sales is the availability of heavily-discounted hotel rooms, I now not only know but have pretty much planned, booked and organised every trip until mid-April and I’ll be adding these bit by bit to the usual page – woohoo!
One place to which I will certainly be returning is my newly discovered Aldgate residence, being not just tremendously busy, well located and very comfortable, but which thanks to the nearby Pret was also the scene of this years’ inaugural mince pie (pictured above for posterity) and thus the unofficial start of Christmas. There was very little time for exploring but it’s pencilled in for a few weeks’ hence and meanwhile Victoria beckons in two and half weeks for the first time since August; I promise that plenty of goodwill will be on offer, if not quite to all men. There aren’t that many hours in the day.
As far as sunlight goes, there haven’t been many hours in the day full stop; when you know you’ll be running home in the dark if you haven’t got your shoes (and several layers of ‘technical fabric’ plus hat and gloves) on by 2pm it’s far too tempting to give it up as a bad job and remain staunchly indoors with Netflix, the cherry brandy and a packet of chocolate digestives providing ballast. The temperature will apparently continue to drop over the weekend and whilst the prospect of pre-Christmas special food shopping (After Eights, Pringles, marzipan – check) is usually more than enough to drag me from the central heating and have me pulling on the UGGs, even I might take some convincing at the moment.
Song of the week might help! Or more likely not.
More soon…
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