Carpet hunting...

It was bliss to have today off and we didn't have too early a start, as we needed Sophie's car later on, so she didn't go to the gym this morning.

We took her into work and as soon as we arrived back home, Keith took the front driver's side wheel off my car as I've picked up another nail from somewhere. We managed, with some difficulty, to get it into the back of Sophie's car and drove over to Hi-Q in Kettering to get the puncture fixed.

While Keith took the tyre out of the car I went into the office to let them know we were there, but I was ignored by the two men behind the counter who seemed more intent on the computer than a potential customer!

We waited almost an hour for the puncture to be repaired and the man sorting it out called us into the garage to say that he thought my tracking needed looking at as one edge of the tyre was worn. Keith disregarded it and said to me it was rubbish so today we felt a little disappointed in their service. The same man then re-appeared and kept asking us questions as to the car registration number and where we lived. It was all very strange!

After paying we returned home, Keith put the tyre back on and I had a shower. It was then off to Tesco to do some shopping but we had a coffee and a sausage roll first as we hadn't had time for any breakfast!

In the afternoon I persuaded Keith to go down to one of the retail parks in Northampton to look at carpets. We went to three places - CarpetRight, Tapis and SCS - and had a good look at the hundreds of carpets and flooring types on offer. I'd done a bit of research as I didn't want the same kind of carpet we have in the living room which has been a huge disappointment to me. It's flattened in all the walked on areas and always looks dirty. I suspect it's polypropylene which, although soft, can flatten very easily.

We picked out a couple we liked and decided to do some more research before making a firm decision. Before leaving we popped into Currys PC World and bought some ear phones for Mike for his birthday. We also had a look at vacuum cleaners as Keith is totally fed up with the one we have now. We looked at a Vax Pet machine and we very nearly bought it, but I wanted to look at reviews first! It was then home to prepare tonight's dinner of braised steaks in gravy and go back down to pick Sophie up from work.

Dinner was delicious, I have to say, and the beef was really tender!