Photo Challenge Day 7 - Shopping

I dunno about you but I find wandering around the shops to be quite calming. Therapeutic maybe.

It's weird though, there's a dichotomy of feelings :

Positive - being out and about, looking at shiny stuff, getting smiles from the people around me.
Negative - realising that you're looking at everything and not knowing what you want to buy or what's best to buy

I've rationalised the Negative part of that. I don't often buy much when I go shopping, I just enjoy the wander. Mind you, saying that, I've developed a bit of a sweet tooth for Thorntons. Bad Pete.

Picture ?

That's the Bristol city centre shopping area, Cabot Circus, shown from the top deck. It's an open air complex with the main part covered by those rain gutters you see above. It lets huge amounts of light in while keeping the rain off.

I've been visiting the Showcase cinema that you can just see to the middle right. It's a better quality cinema than our usual Vue but ... you have to pay for parking and the popcorn isn't as good.

The central area has lots of munchie places around too and I really need to check some of them out. Perhaps with a willing volunteer to escort me to the best ones. That's still a bit wishful thinking at the moment :

Cupid's Gift still natters to me over text but we haven't figured out another date yet. (I still think a midnight cruise would be fun - although I'd want to stop and chat to avoid being distant and half-attentioning* while driving)
* - is that a valid phrase ? Anyway - I'd hate to neglect the other person in the conversation by devoting my attention to not crashing !
The Noodle Queen - I spotted a visit on Friday and it's much appreciated. You're a little wonder who always makes me smile. But it would be great to properly meet in person.

(I do hope Noodle Queen reads this and recognises herself there !)

To be honest, I'd still not want to do anything beyond meeting up for a wander and chatting as I'm still looking and feeling like I've been dragged through that thornbush. It's improving, steadily and visibly ... but I'm still not fixed yet.

So at the moment, I'm in a place where I'd head out with someone, have a wander, maybe have a bit of chilling out later but I'd then want to go away and hide for a while. My body is reclaiming the bad bits into good bits but I know they're still there. Plus there's the bad neck which is actually being quite painful at the moment.

This is going on to a downer isn't it ?

I hope not. Perhaps that's a symptom that I'm tired and mentally getting ready for a long Xmas break. I have a fortnight off this year and really must devote some of that to tidying up the place and getting some long neglected jobs sorted out. My boiler is still having trouble, it can heat the water for showers etc but it's not achieving much with the house heating. It never did really, I have a standalone convector heater that's really helping out at the moment.

I just heard my dinner bell go off - so I'll wrap up there.

Just 10 more working days to go ! Really looking forward to the break. Perhaps Cupid's Gift or the Noodle Queen will give me an excuse to treat them at some point ?

I hope so :-) Or maybe they'll go to that Chinese cake shop (see yesterday).

But - back to the shopping theme :

Books are awesome.