A little time to kill.

 My hair appointment was not until 12.30pm. It was only 11.30am, and I had already been loitering in several shops to the obvious annoyance of the staff. No one wants a customer who has no intentions of buying. I had a good hour to wait, and in our small town, there’s only one place to do that when your alone and in dire need of somewhere to wile away an hour or two, the Merrie England coffee shop. I’ve blogged about our Merrie England coffee shops before, they attract a varied age group, some young mothers with their offspring, some older patrons who frequent the tables to meet up and enjoy a good natter, some lone patrons such as myself, who maybe just fancy a coffee and a sit down before going on their way to elsewhere.

As you walk in, the counter, always filled with appetizing goodies such as their delicious home made apple pie to give just one example, is on your left. The Merrie England staff are always attentative and I was served immediately.

“Tea and a Gluten free Turkey salad sandwich please.”

The sandwich has to be made to order, so I was instructed to go and sit down and one of the staff would bring my sandwich to me once made, and so armed with my cup of tea I looked around for an empty table. No luck, but I noticed that my favourite place had one man sat in it, engrossed in looking down at something in front of him on the table. Carefully navigating my way down the aisle between the tables, cup and saucer perched precariously in my hand, I made my way to the right hand corner at the back.

“ Is it okay if I sit here?” I asked the man.

“ Yes, of course! I’m going soon anyway!” he replied. Sitting down opposite him, with my back to the rest of the other tables, I placed my shopping bag on the empty seat beside me, noting as I did so that the item he was engrossed in on the table was a Kindle. Hmm. That peaked my interest immediately because as I’m such an avid reader, I’ve been considering getting one myself. Always strapped for storage space in our tiny flat, I’m constantly having to recycle my books practically as soon as I have read them. But how to open the conversation about his Kindle? I decided to act dumb.

“ Is that a Kindle your using?” I asked.

“ Yes it is!” came the reply.

“ I’m considering buying one myself, as I love reading. Have you found yourself reading more since you bought it?” I enquired, genuinely interested in the answer.

“ Yes, I think I have. It’s the convenience I suppose.” he replied. I then asked him if you could now get most books on the Kindle to which he replied the affirmative.  Shortly after, he rose and left and I hoped that I hadn’t made much of a nuisance of myself, asking my questions of a stranger, but I simply couldn’t sit at a table with someone and not make polite conversation, its not in my nature to do so.

As soon as he had vacated the corner seat, I moved into it, finding it still nice and warm. People were still leaving and arriving, as soon as one table became vacant it was quickly filled with new faces, all earnestly engaged in conversation with each other. Deciding to do an experiment of sorts, I took out my phone, and took a picture of them all, enjoying a tea or coffee and a good natter. Would anyone notice?

I think I already knew the answer, and its why I prefer to sit tucked away in the corner seat.

 Technogran

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Is it here at last?

Been out stretching my swollen legs today. A slow walk down to the park accompanied by K which rewarded us with some wonderful sights of crocus’s and daffodils all vying with each other for a glimpse of some welcome spring sunshine. It was a very enjoyable walk, not too cold, and did me the world of good especially to breath in that gorgeous fresh Spring air,  though I was absolutely beggared when we landed home! Enjoy the arrival at last of Spring everyone because  I am!

 

Is it Spring Yet? VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

TG

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A Tour Around Town.

 

I had to go down to town this morning, so I thought that I would take you all on a tour around our little town.  It only has two shopping streets and these are mostly filled with charity shops and strangely enough, travel agents. We do have a Boots, a Wilkinson's, a Sainsbury’s and of course our monstrosity of a Tesco’s.  (Which by the way most of us didn’t want built.)  We have a river running through the town at the southern end, and also a canal which in Victorian times would have been the main thoroughfare for goods arriving to the factories, and one of the old factories that stood right at the side of the canal to enable goods to be easily loaded from the narrowboats  has since been converted into luxury flats.

Now of course, the canal is used mainly for those who prefer to live in a narrowboat and also for canal cruises and pleasure rides.  We do have a boat builders yard though that builds new narrowboats, and at great danger of someone suddenly coming out of the builders and confronting me about why I was loitering on their premises armed with a camera, I managed to sneak a shot of their latest creation.

We also have our own park, one of the nicest I think, in Calderdale. Not too big, not too small,  it has a lovely play area divided sensibly into three, a toddlers area, an older children’s play area and a Skateboard and Bike area for the teens.  At the frontage, we have a lovely flower bed area where folks can go and sit down (weather permitting of course) and while away the time whilst they admire the handiwork of the councils gardeners.

Across the bridge is an open field area that is used every year for our annual Gala. It’s also used by the numerous football teams as well.  It is fringed by the wooded bank rising up steeply at one side, and the beck meandering through the park at the other.  At the opposite end of the park to the Play areas, is the Bowling Greens for the older residents, a Crazy Golf for families to enjoy, two tennis courts and the resident wood carved figure. ( I can’t state a name for him as I am not sure he has one.)

Last time I took a shot of him, he looked very sorry for himself, as he had been left on his side laying prostrate on the floor. (must have fallen over, or been pushed.) However, I was delighted to see that someone has taken pity on him and he is now upright, albeit propped firmly vertical by surrounding stones.  He is also now facing the new swimming baths, whereas originally he faced the other direction. Perhaps someone feels that he should be party to all the fun and games that no doubt will be ensuing there soon.

I shall have other photos to add later, as it was drizzling with rain and so I missed taking any shots of the river and also our lovely train station, nor have I included any photos of the streets in town either.  Enjoy my slideshow above and I’ll be back soon.

TG

Technorati Tags: tour,town,parish,church,canal,walk,narrowboats,park,play

Update about our new Swimming Pool.

Some of my readers may have been wondering what the latest news is regarding our new Swimming Pool, although I can in all probability count those on one hand (or maybe even one finger) as most of my readers probably couldn’t give a monkeys toss about it. So on the off chance that someone, somewhere was frantic with worry about how the build has progressed over the terrible winter months we have just endured, I now publish this update.

Despite one of the worst winters ever, our trusty hard hats have been hard at it (forgive the slight pun) and plodded on through rain, hail, snow and blow. A great deal of progress has been achieved as you can see by my snaps taken through the holes left specifically for nosey  parker Technogran and her sidekick K. (The lower cut out is for K so that she doesn’t have to stand on tiptoe to peer into the  site, and the upper two are for me to be able to do my ‘panoramic shots’ of the build and show off progress to the best of my ability.)

As the sun was unfortunately directly in camera shot the day I took these snaps, there aren’t any from our usual vantage point of the front entrance, we had to mosey around the back of the build to our other ‘Viewing Points’ (aren’t these constructors thoughtful?) and I was able to do a pan of the Swimming Pool end where you can see that the windows are going in, the pool itself is already in place (or its shell at any rate) and the long awaited time when K and I can don our cossies ( will in all probability require new one’s as its an age since we wore them) and try to be the first to jump in and christen our lovely new pool seems so much closer to reality!  I can feel my skin peeling and drying out with all that chlorine already! Yippee!

Wonder who they will ask to open it all?  That’s all for now folks, I’ll keep my one reader updated on future progress as it happens.

TG

Technorati Tags: Swimming pool,winter,hard hats,construction,windows