Window shopping on a wintery day!…

At the beginning of the half term break we set aside today  for a family day out…waiting to see what the weather would do before making plans as to where we would go. Alas, we woke this morning to a hard frost, soon washed away by heavy rain as we breakfasted & by the time we were ready to leave we were in a blizzard! Not to be outdone, we set off to Milton Keynes, at least we could spend a day under cover!!  

Our first call was Ikea…normally a place to spend money on things you didn’t even know you needed…not today…I bought only the planned two packs of serviettes!!





I was allowed to nip into  Hobbycraft while Lee & the boys spent time playing with the display gadgetry in PC World! But again came out with only 1 box of glue dots!! I think I may be spending waaay too much time with my good friend Karen!!LOL!!


After that we headed off to
X-Scape for lunch at Nando’s…

We have never yet been there yet, where we’ve been able to just walk in & be seated, so we filled the waiting time by watching the skiers in the ‘Sno!Zone’.

Today I chose a Caesar salad with grilled chicken, generously drizzled with Extra Hot Peri Peri sauce!! Needless to say I also downed copious amounts of water!!

I tried to get a decent shot of all the illuminated white paper lanterns that hang from the timber beamed ceiling,but to no avail!! So you’ll have to make do with this frieze…which tells the story of the Portuguese cockerel & how he came to be a good luck symbol in Portugal! 



Once lunch was out of the way we had a mooch around the skate/snowboarding shops where Nathan is in seventh heaven!! We soon had a list of ‘must haves’ for his forthcoming birthday…to add to the list given while playing with the gadgets in PC World!!! He wishes!!!

Then we braved the now torrential rain to get to the main shopping mall…& while my boys (All 3 !!) went off to the Lego shop & ‘GAME’…I perused the new spring collection in my favourite shop of all time…Hobbs. Gorgeous stuff indeed, but again…not a penny spent!!

Now, Alex hates shopping…as you can probably tell by his body language…not to mention the look on his face!! So I had to work overtime on keeping him distracted to give us all a chance to see what we wanted to see!!


Nathan, on the other hand is his
mothers son & can easily match my enthusiasm for bargain hunting! I snapped him on this bronze book sculpture today…it’s been outside Waterstone’s book shop for as long as I can remember & the boys both love to try & move the heavy ball on its chain, but I’ve never taken a photo before!!


I’ve put together a collage of photo’s from today’s outing for this weeks ‘52 Walks 2010’ submission…the current added challenge is ‘Entrances & Exits’ but there were none that inspired me today!!
Anyone who knows Milton Keynes will appreciate how quiet the mall looks…considering that it’s half term I’d expected it to be heaving, but it was actually quite pleasant not to be pushed and shoved as we went about…I gave ‘Hotel Chocolat’ a VERY wide berth!!!

To finish up today….a couple of LO’s!! It’s the deadline for the Dixie Pieces ‘Beat the Blues’ crop challenges tonight…& here are my final two submissions…the first was a colour challenge..just light blue, dark blue & lime green…with a spring photo & theme…
 
I used a photo of Lee & the boys taken last year at Priory Park, feeding the ducks, swans, geese, seagulls……I do love it when I can use up bits of ‘vintage’ stash & scraps!!

The second challenge was a sketch & blue had to be used, so this is what I came up with…

This photo seems like a lifetime ago!!! My 29th birthday!!! Do you know…I still have those button fly, red label Levi 501’s…packed away in the loft! Size 14 & waiting patiently to be worn again!! It always amazes me that I used to think I was so fat then…Oh to be that fat again…soon…please!!!

If you’ve made it to here…thanks for trawling through & hanging in there!! I know I tend to ramble, but it may be a few days before I post again…I’ve been busy with scrapping so feel I really must knuckle down to some serious housework over the next few days…and it’s FREE insertion day on ebay tomorrow, so I must get some stuff (that I’ve been meaning to list since before Christmas) listed & sold!! Well if I’m not spending it I might as well be making it!!

Thanks again for dropping by & I wish you all a fabulous weekend…whatever you have planned! {{{Hugs}}}