Sunset from Hill House, Mount Helen. February 2024

Monday, October 27, 2014

A day full of surprises

Up towards the roundabout on Queen Victoria Road there is a complex of health and beauty businesses.  There are hairdressers and nail people and beauticians and teeth whiteners and all sort of things.  I noticed a little while ago the the nail clinic had closed down.  This didn't surprise me unduly.  You wouldn't necessarily expect a nail clinic to flourish at the bottom of QVR. In fact, I am surprised that nail clinics flourish at all!

Anyway, as I ambled up on Saturday morning for my 9:00 hair appointment, I noticed that there was a new sign outside the little car park.  It appears that the nail clinic has transformed into a sandwich shop.  Much more useful, in my view.  I'm not sure if it is entirely a takeaway outlet or whether there are seats inside.  I had brought with me just the money for my hair cut and it didn't seem kind to go and peer through the window when I had no intention of buying anything.  But I might wander up another Saturday when I am at home and see what they do.  Not next Saturday, though.  We are off to Bishops' House next Saturday.

So.  I wandered into Angie's hair dressing salon -- to find a complete stranger stood inside! This was definitely a surprise.  Where is Angie?  On holiday perhaps?  No.  It seems she's left.  Gone.  Just like that! The Saturday before, apparently.  The two young women who are now resident in the salon don't really know where she's gone or why, although they think she has moved her business to Ashover.  Ashover isn't all that far, I suppose.  It's a bit beyond The Nettle.  But it's a bit of a step just for a hair cut, when there are hair dressers actually in Tupton that I can walk to.  The nice young woman kindly fitted me in, since I thought I had a 9:00 appointment.  And it turns out that both of them used to work in the salon next door , where I used to go before stomping off and joining Angie's salon up in Grassmoor (and which later moved to Tupton and has now gone further afield, possibly!). I have made another appointment with them.  But it was definitely surprising.  Angie hadn't mentioned that she was thinking of moving the last time I was there, and it wasn't that long ago.

Home I went, and The Builder and I went out to Marsh Green for some weekend foodie supplies and then back to Clay Cross so I could buy him a new tablet. There isn't actually anything wrong with his iPad, but increasingly you can't update the apps on the iPad 1 and some app developers are taking the earlier versions out of commission.  So, for example, he couldn't use Skype any more. A cheap and cheerful tablet with a newer operating system seemed to be called for.  I went with the Hudl, which is Android based but made by Tesco.  This may surprise you, since I am not, as you are probably aware, a huge fan of Tesco, but the Hudl gets good reviews and it was cheap and cheerful and looked cute. The Builder seems entirely delighted with it. He can have all the latest apps, including Skype.  I must say that it is fun to play with. But I am saving up, inter alia, for a new iPad and am not tempted by the cuteness of the Hudl.

Apart from all that excitement, we had a fairly quiet weekend, following my Three Busy Weeks. We remembered to put the clocks back, although I did forget to change the clock radio in the bedroom and woke up at what the clock said was 4:30 but which was in reality only 3:30. In both cases it was far too early to get up, but it did mean that I was lying wakefully in bed for much longer than was necessary :-(  I think we had successfully adjusted all the clocks and timers now, except for the clock in the car which rather alarmingly informed me that it was 8:30 this morning as we set off for me to catch the 7:49 train from the station!

I do have a moderately busy week ahead this week, but my diary mainly has red (meeting) appointments in it, a couple of green (one-to-one meetings with students)sessions, a few cupboard (blue) sessions and a lunch appointment.  No yellow blocks this week

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