Tidings of Joy to all ...

So how are the Christmas hang-overs coming along?  Hope you are all doing well ... this time of year is hard to be apart from your family and we are all missing everybody.   Life goes on though and we are getting more 'sorted' every day.

Yesterday afternoon Hayzel and I went into the local library and organised all our library cards - what a breeze!  Everything is so efficient and organised - we now have nice shiny library cards and can use them at any library in Norfolk.   We get to take 15 books out at a time (keep for 3 weeks).   The system is fully electronic - when you take out books, you put them in a pile and place them in a scanning unit, which neatly scans your books and lists them on a receipt before printing it out for you, the receipt shows the date that each book has to be returned.  So easy.   I borrowed some very interesting books on Norfolk - including one that is filled with photographs of the coastal villages and beaches all along the Norfolk coastline.  

I am very impatient and whilst trawling around on the Internet over Christmas, I decided to buy myself a Bridge camera as I can't afford a DSLR at this point (not till I'm earning some UK pounds on a regular basis!).   So I purchased a Nikon Coolpix P510 - it arrived this morning and I've been playing around with it a bit today.   Lovely little machine, I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with it.  

Hayzel, Faye and myself decided to go out for a girls' shopping morning.   After wandering around the Riverside shopping centre, we decided to go into Norwich and rather do some shopping at the bigger shops, like Debenhams or Marks & Sparks.  Oh My God, what a mistake!   For starters it took us over half an hour just to find a spot in a car park we usually go to.  It would have been a lot easier if the drivers of cars in front of us had moved along through the parking lot until they found a spot, rather than just park there waiting for someone to leave.   There were no parking attendants on duty to move cars along - very infuriating - we couldn't reverse to get out, just had to sit there until someone decided to move up front of us.

Eventually we found a space, parked and looked for somewhere to go and have a snack because it was lunch time and we were all a bit hungry.  We went into Chapelfield Mall and up the escalators to the food hall ... people were sitting in groups on the floor eating their MacDonalds!  There were no places to sit in any restaurant or fastfood outlet.  It was ridiculous.  I've never seen so many people in one place at one time.  The mall walkways were a sea of people, you couldn't put a pin between them.   We turned around and left the mall - and found space to sit at a restaurant called Macintosh's ... har har .... drinks came quickly but the bloody sandwiches and chips took over half an hour!   One thing the UK doesn't have the edge on is fast food, or the social dynamics of family restaurants. Hayzel and I both thought that a Spur would do really well in Norwich! 
 
We left the restaurant, topped up the parking meter (you pay in advance and put the ticket inside your car on the dashboard, so it is visible to parking attendants) and then joined the thousands of people wandering around the city in search of Post-Christmas bargains.

The initial plan was to get Faye a pretty party dress.  Not so easy.   We noticed that the large stores just don't seem to have any decent children's clothes on sale at all - all the girls' dresses looked like 1970's stock.   We found some divine bridesmaids dresses in Debenhams but at over £71 for some of the designs, we decided to give that a miss!  

After an hour or so of wasting our time (we did buy some things for Faye and I got Ewan some Mike the Knight tops and socks) we decided to go home and call it a day.

We passed a window in the city, whilst looking for parking that featured posters by the Norwich City Centre Partnership,  one poster states:

       Norwich shops generate £1.38 billion per annum
                                and
       Norwich is the best city in the country for retail satisfcation.

I have one piece of advice to give to anyone who lives near Norwich, don't bother going into that city until the middle of January :)
And if you do,  go by bus.

Faye in one of the outfits her Mum bought her today

We hope you all have a lovely New Year party and great start to 2013.