A Boring Book

13th Oct 2020

Today was not as good a day as I had popped for. I thought we could do a bit of shopping, have a nice bit of food, that kind of thing, had a generally nice day out, away from the house. But it wasn’t to be.

We got up at a decent time today as I wanted to go into town. The three main things I was looking at getting was a new pair of trousers for work since my current ones had holes around the crotch area, and new pair of shoes for general going out since all my other pairs where at this point in the bin, and finally looking into getting a credit card since I was hoping for us to move house soon and I need to get my credit rating up so we can get better deals on any possible mortgageent and all of the rest of the bills we will have. 

So the first thing I did was almost go through my getting ready for work routine, though I took longer in the shower as I didn't need to worry too much about time. Sometimes it’s just nice to feel the water running over you, though I wish we had a bath sometimes. I don’t think I’d use it often, but it would be nice to have a good soak every now and then. 

After I had a shower David had his own while I went out to get lunch. As per normal a meal deal from the local co-op was on the menu, which was quick and easy to choose. Back in the house David was still showering, unsurprisingly, so I sat and looked through the internet while I waited. There wasn’t anything particularly amazing or noteworthy today, so by the time he was finally done, I was quite bored. We ate and watched some YouTube then watched some more as we didn’t really want to be waiting at the bus stop for a long time, as, though it wasn’t raining, it was cold outside. I panicked a little as it got close to the time we needed to go, because with 15 minutes before the bus would arrive, David still wasn’t even dressed. But I needn't have worried so much as the bus was five minutes late anyway. 

The bus trip was spent in relative silence, though David constantly grumbled about the various people moving around with poorly used masks or just completely without them at times. I know it’s frustrating, but there’s really nothing we can do about the idiots who go around without the most basic of protection. Once we got off the bus he continued to make dumb comments and get frustrated with people and I snapped at him a little. I instantly felt bad, but really, if he was just going to complain the whole time, it was going to be a very unfun trip. It seemed to do the trick to a degree though because he did tone it down a bit after that.

First we walked through the main shopping centre. I had those main three things in mind but I was also hoping to do a bit of girly shopping too, going into my favourite clothes shops etc. however I was instantly disappointed. Zoe’s, one of the best ones in my opinion, has either left or been brought by a similar company because it was a different shop now, and not as good. Zoe’s was cool because it was more my style of clothes, it didn’t sell only what was in fashion but also a range of other, more specifically for me, more gothic styles which I really like. But this new one just seems to concentrate on the current fashion, which I have to say is kind of horrible and confusing. On one hand it’s thin wool-like material that’s sort of ribbed to be more stretchy, it seems over half the shop was in this style from what would otherwise be normal t-shirts to the more styled fashion tops. On the other hand crop tops seem to be in though with puffy sleeves made from a thin net-like material, and even half of these were also of the woollen ribbed variety for the main body of the top. It’s starting to get colder now so crop tops aren't really what I want, and the woollen stuff both looks dumb to me and wouldn't really work as jumpers or t-shirts, they’re sort of in the middle not able to do either roll with any effectiveness in my opinion. After a couple more shops with the same kind of styles, I gave up and we headed over to the shoe shops instead. 

This was where my next biggest disappointment occurred. I love shoes, if there is anything I'm truly girly about it’s my shoes. I take a long time deciding on a pair normally and I like to check all of the different shoe shops. But this time of year is the best because this is when they are selling all the nice boots. The main place I go is Shoezone. I like Clarke's and other such places but they are always far to expensive these days and Shoezone seems to have relatively decent quality stuff for a fraction of the price. I made my way over to the boots section and found a couple of pairs I really liked. But, and this is a big but, I’ve gotten fatter over lock-down, and it’s affected my legs. My feet are the same size but I couldn’t zip any of the boots up properly, not even the shortest ones. I was really disappointed because I really liked a couple of the styles. After trying a few different stores I ended up getting a pair of fairly plain ankle boots. Better than having nothing, definitely more comfortable than the falling apart trainers I was wearing, but not exactly what I was hoping for. 

Our next stop was Matalan. David suggested we go there for the trousers as it’s a well known place for having good prices. For a start the one way system they had in place was very confusing but eventually we found our way round to the leg-wear section for women. In the meantime we passed through the bedding section and oh boy did they have some nice stuff. The highlight of the entire day was finding the most fluffiest throw ever and claiming it as mine. It even has sparkly bits in it which will no doubt irritate David when it goes through the wash. It’s always fun to irritate David with glitter and glitter like things. Matalan is the only place I have seen in a while that does boot-cut jeans, however, once again my weight betrayed me. For some reason, the producers of these clothes think that if you are fatter you are also taller. It’s very frustrating. When I could fit a 12, everything was of the perfect length, but now i’m a 16 everything is like 2 two inches too long for me, and it’s very hard to turn up a boot-cut style of trouser. So I ended up going for the cheapest straight-cut I could find. A small disappointment but a disappointment nonetheless. 

Our final stop was the bank. I’ve come to like being a customer of Metro, the staff there are always friendly and willing to help, even if you are being a little dumb yourself. I was hoping I could get one of their credit cards, but it turns out that wasn’t going to be the case. A couple of years ago I missed a few payments on some bills and I had trouble with my phone when I moved over to a new one. This all likely hurt my credit score, so at the moment it’s only just into the fair bracket. The woman who I was talking to was very friendly and helpful however and directed me to a couple of websites that would be able to help. She also explained a little about what a credit card was so I could be sure what I was getting myself into. So I didn’t get what i wanted exactly, but it was a very pleasant visit and I did leave feeling I knew a little more than what I knew when I arrived.

Lastly David and I debated what to do about food. Once we decided against a restaurant of some kind, (the only one David was really interested in was kebab and I really didn’t feel like that,) we went into Tesco to try to get some idea of what we would cook instead. I ended up giving up, I was getting tired by this point, and fed up with the whole day so suggested we just go to co-op on the way home and grab a stake or something. With that settled we headed to the pub that was right next to the bus stop to both wait out the rain and wait for the bus to arrive. Yes, at some point in the day it had started raining again.

We’d just had some smoothies so I didn't order anything, but David asked for a hot chocolate. What arrived was a cup and a stick with a cube of chocolate on the end. This was a little baffling but, apparently drinks are self service now in this particular chain of pubs and David had ordered this particular type of hot chocolate in the hopes that he’d not have to do the self service part. Well he was wrong and it was dumb. You were supposed to have hot milk then dip the cube in and let it melt into the milk, at least that's what the instructions said. But there was no hot milk at the self service point so David ended up getting a hot chocolate instead. So he ended up with a super chocolatey hot chocolate. The main reason he didn’t want to use the self service was because it is very difficult to carry a drink without spilling it, while also limping around on crutches. I did offer to help but he was irritated and stubborn so did it himself.

After that we caught the bus and went home, David complained again about the people not wearing masks on the bus, we went into the co-op and got some lamb steaks, roast potatoes and yorkshire puddings. It wasn’t the best meal in the world but it was still tasty. While waiting for it to cook I did the next best thing to going out shopping. I shopped online. I probably spent more money this way, but I was determined to get some nice new clothes for myself like I had planned in the first place. I got myself three new tops, and a couple of nice looking gothic skirts along with some new leggings to go with. I don’t like the feeling of bare skin against skin, especially on my legs, and I hate my bare legs anyway so I’m not a big fan of skirts even though I love the look of them. I get around this by buying long skirts and wearing leggings underneath.

Once food was ready we had to eat quickly as we were then involved with a guild event on ESO. It was a dungeon run event designed to get people more skill points. I took my new crafter as crafters always need more skill points so that they can be good at crafting and combat, not just one or the other. For the most part it was a smooth run but one of the dungeons had a very confusing map and we all got very lost. I stuck with two others who both just kind of gave up looking for the right room until some one else had found it. It ended up that we were on the wrong side of the map completely so probably would never have found it. That was a laugh, and we did indeed get plenty of skill points to spend on our abilities by the end. The dungeon runs are a little hectic at times but a lot of fun.

After we finished the guild event, I got onto the internet to find out more about credit cards. What I found confused me more than anything, and though I was confident I’d found the best one for me, all the various bits of information made me wimp out of actually applying for it. I decided that I needed to talk to my dad since he had credit cards and therefore would surely know what I should do. But by this point it was very late and he’d likely have gone to bed so that was going to have to be a job for tomorrow after work.