Two out of three ain't bad...

My birthday started extremely well yesterday with a cup of tea in bed courtesy of the husband.   He had excelled himself on the present front, having booked a weekend in Liverpool (somewhere I have never been) and a night in The Cavern.  He's not terribly au fait with musical history however, and I may have to double check that he's not booked us into some leather fetish club for the night.  Mind you, the thought of him calling me 'Sir' for the evening sounds attractive...

The 'not so' Surprise Birthday Lunch went beautifully at The Seven Stars on the Green (check them out at www.sevenstarsonthegreen.co.uk/).  I got flowers, cards, lovely gifts and a wodge of cash from my parents which I had mentally spent already.  The best bit was seeing daughter number two as she had travelled down from Milton Keynes to spend time with her aged mum.  There was an ulterior motive for her visit, as you'll find out later...

I had booked yesterday off work as requested by daughter number two.  She had done the same, and had suggested a day of shopping and lunch.   So we trolleyed into Reading mid morning, each clutching a hastily written list of things we needed to buy.  I can't remember what was on hers, but mine had 'knickers, jacket, face cream' written on it. Unfortunately, by the time we stopped for our first coffee, I had spent half of my birthday money on things which weren't on my list, leaving very little for what I actually needed.

Determined to buy at least one of  the items on my list, we headed off to M&S,  Knicker Capital of the Civilised World.  It was here that any sanity I may have retained after trawling around Reading for three hours, disappeared in a puff of thongs.  All I wanted was some sensible drawers which wouldn't give me a VPL (for my gentlemen readers, if you're reading this, you may need to seek advice from your wives as to what the hell I am talking about).  It's not much to ask, but faced with all the choices, I just stood there and tried to find what I was looking for.  There was an elderly lady standing next to me doing the same, and I turned to her and said how confusing it all was.

She nodded and said, 'Too much bloody choice these days.  In my day the only choice was white or black'.

If only life were that simple.  Here I was faced with shorts, boy shorts, high leg, bikini, thong, cheeky pants (don't go anywhere near these unless you have a derriere worth insuring).  There was cotton, modal, thermal and at the very end of the rail VPL.  Hallelujah...now did they have my size? No.  So here was a quandary.  Did I buy the smaller ones and eventually lose the half stone I have promised to do, or did I buy the larger ones and tie a knot in each side?  Well I'm nothing if not optimistic, so I bought the smaller ones and gave myself a stiff talking to in the queue as to what I wasn't going to eat over the next month or so.

At 2.17pm, I said to daughter number two that we would have to go home as I couldn't carry any more bags.  I should say at this point that a lot of the bags were my daughter's.  An unspoken agreement had happened, somewhere around Debenhams whereby she would allow me to use her student card to get discount, as long as I then paid for her clothes.  See what I mean about the ulterior motive?  But I was very pleased with my purchases.  I had jumpers, jeans, trousers for work, a jacket, mascara, a shirt-dress, and a skirt.   So you can see that I managed to buy a couple of things off my list.

As Meatloaf would say 'Two out of three ain't bad', but I may just have to go back for that face cream...

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