Arrived at the Mercure Nottingham for the @Jeff Brown gig at Peggy’s Skylight tonight. Totes pissing down. My fedora (well it is a jazz gig) kept me dry and my specs dropless, if you get my drift. Bloody miserable. The room is only just bigger than the shoebox we had for the Paris Olympics and the widow blind is stuck in the down position. Oh and the bar is shut. Never mind.
Sbeen an action packed afternoon. Picked up my Taverners Membership card from Trent Bridge then we made our way to the Lace Market Car Park. It is one of those very old car parks with narrow parking spots. Very very old. Hey, I reversed in ok. We did three emporia: the caff at Waterstones, a walk through the storm to M&S and then John Lewis.
Waterstones caff had a lot of singles reading books at tables with the occasional laptop open. One oldish guy was reading a book entitled “Writing Better Lyrics”.
M&S is where, after about 90 seconds, I finally realised it was not my kind of shop. They have nothing for me. Not even the right kind of underpants! What is the world coming to? THG found a barg or two while I spent 25 mins on my phone in the caff. It is her kind of shop. They do have a good selection of bras. I could see that from my vantage point near the cutlery point in the caff. Father Ted sprang to mind…
Overheard a woman asking for four sugars and saw the bloke opposite pick up his dropped piece of cake and pop it in his mouth. Ten second rule applies, I said. His wife replied that he would have done it regardless of the elapsed time.
We slow footed to John Lewis. Through the rain and eventually manoeuvred past four women with umbrellas walking abreast and filling up half the street. JL loomed large and we went immediately to the furniture section. We were there for me to try out a few armchairs. Only one fitted the bill that we could both agree on. I then sat on a sofa in the haberdashery section and when rescued from there we hit the menswear, so to speak.
The choice of underpants at JL was very disappointing. Better quality than M&S but they only had one pack of boxers in my size and they were the wrong colour. Who on earth wants black and grey boxers. These days it would appear to be all about trunks and slips and other figure hugging apparel. Not my thing. THG disappeared for a mo and I ambled around the menswear. A nice soft cotton pair of pyjamas caught my eye. They were in the sale down from £85 to £45. Bargain. There were no pyjama tops on view and it was then that I realised that these were not pyjamas but lounge pants! Huh! I put them back on the shelf and we moved on. Some lucky member of staff will have to tidy them up as I messed them about looking for the sizes on the labels inside the kecks.
We retraced our steps to the car park passing a bedraggled woman without umbrella or headgear to keep the rain away. Her face was contorted in discomfort.
Now in the hotel room watching snooker with a cup of tea and a biscuit. We have three hours to relax and recover from a very rare (for me) bit of retail before we head out into the night. Fortunately the venue is only about a hundred yards away.
Ciao amigos.