Yet more Christmas shopping...!

We dropped Sophie off at uni at 11am this morning as she was meeting a friend for coffee and had to prepare for a presentation.

From there we drove to the Weston Favell Shopping Centre which I have a love/hate relationship with. It's been (I dread to say it) a large part of my life as when we first moved to Northampton it hadn't even been built and we lived almost opposite the large open field where it was eventually erected. This year the centre has been celebrating 40 years and I'm sure I've mentioned on here before that a photo of my Nan has been displayed prominently for most of the year, as she was pictured with David Jacobs. When we ran our business we had to visit virtually every day as we banked there and in the run up to Christmas it became more and more frustrating to go because it was so busy.

This morning was no exception and it was only because I needed to go to the bank that we had to visit anyway. Arrggh! We found a car parking space eventually but even at 11am the place was very busy indeed!

We went to the bank as Mike wanted me to take some money out for him. Tonight we had planned to go shopping in Milton Keynes and we were taking his girl-friend Heather with us. I think he wanted to treat her to something while shopping!

We also went to the post office and I sent a card off to my friend Julia who lives near Chicago. That done we sped off home, had a bite to eat and then did our shopping, but only for the weekend today as we were really short of time.

It seemed only minutes had gone by when it was time to collect Sophie and before going home we went to the Fancy Dress shop in Northampton as I needed a bald cap, some glasses and a moustache for my Gandhi dress-up on Friday night. We struggled through the school-run traffic and within five minutes I had all I needed.

We left to pick up Heather at 4.15pm and the weather had turned horrible - really drizzly, misty and nasty. The traffic was absolutely horrendous and we crawled virtually the whole way to Milton Keynes. Sophie chatted to Heather about school and sixth form choices and they got on very well. She's a lovely girl, very bubbly and friendly and her and Mike seem to be a great couple.

After parking we headed to River Island but there was nothing there that Mike liked so we went back to Top Man and my son picked out sweaters and tee-shirts. He tried all the jumpers on and bought everything the girls picked out for him. He was so lucky having three women looking after him!

After Top Man we left them to it and Sophie and I went for some much needed sustenance in Starbucks. I treated myself to a hot chocolate while Sophie had camomile tea and a sausage bap. The centre wasn't as busy as it looked when we were trying to park and we had a great time mooching about in Accessorize and M&S.

We met the love-birds at 7.30pm and drove home along a very busy M1. By 8.30pm we were sitting down to Keith's beef casserole and very good it was too!