The sea of shoppers.....

So... Sunday was a better day with Jboy than Saturday had been. Huzzah! He climbed voluntarily into the car so we were off. 'Where to?' M asked. We both groaned inwardly and indeed outwardly at the idea of yet another garden centre , lovely as they are, so we just set off....how spontaneous we were. No idea where we would go....an open road, a tank full of fuel....even a cooperative Jboy. So we did what many a parent of an unsettled baby has done, we just drove. Jboy is entertained (and contained) in the car while it is moving..he isn't so keen on stopping and positively hates reversing (an aside..M and I were recently standing next to a horse box as it waited at some trafiic lights. From within the horse box we could hear much movement and kicking..if it had been a cartoon, there would have been hoof prints in the side of the horse box..it reminded us of Jboy !! ) Anyway, we drove until we found a signpost to a 'shopping village'. We headed there. There was bound to be cafe of some description there, we thought, and I had been up A Very Long Time by that point . Maybe we are naive..or just sheltered but nothing had quite prepared us for the experience. To start with the car park was packed. And not just with cars... there were coaches galore!!! (Should have been a clue) Thankfully, having Jboy means we get to park in a Blue Badge spot, of which there were many. Once we got out of the car, we were kind of emerged in a raging torrent of people, washing us along with their multiple shopping bags. (To my Cornish friends and family, it was like a stormy day at Perranporth or Porthtowan..wave after wave after wave). We were swept along until we spotted a cafe and just about managed to get to safety.(Where is a Lifeguard when you need one??) In the cafe,we gathered our thoughts and our wits ,such as they are, about us and planned our strategy. We would dive once more into the fray and visit only those places we knew the names of.....there were about 4. We had landed in some alien land of shopping where the shops had names like 'Versace' and 'Armani' and where things in the sale and with a discount still cost £400. Fortified with strong coffee and a very pleasant pain au raisin (cosmopolitan we!!), we went out.....I think we went round and round the place, carried along by the force of the people waves, several times. Jboy was happy just walking, people watching, light gazing and occasionally stopping to bop at music blaring from one of the outlets. If Jboy is happy, we are largely happy too. Eventually, however, M and I began to flag. There is only so much of this sort of experience one can take (well, this one!!). We managed to locate our car and broke free from the current and the strong tides, clambered wearily into the car and collapsed,panting in our seats. We drove home. slightly stunned by the episode and vowing to be more careful next time we decide to be spontaneous!

Such fun.

The End