After yesterday, I thought Claire deserved a little treat. She has a thing for Halloween, and the whole orange coloured American merchandising thing that goes with it. When I was a kid there literally weren’t any pumpkins, we did the vegetable face carving thing on turnips/swedes, stuck a candle in them and stank the place out. Trick or Treat, thankfully, hadn’t been imported but we did have our own Mischievous Night which was the 4th November the day before Bonfire Night. That was basically a form of traditional vandalism involving treacle,string, door knobs, flour, door knocking and running. Of course Bonfire Night these days is a pointless homeopathic facsimile of what it used to be, watered down to be practically unrecognisable.
Where was I? Oh yes. Claire! She said she “needed” a ghost mug from Flying Tiger, which of course doesn’t exist in our neck of the woods, (that would be too easy). So I offered to take her to York and that’s what we did.
We, as a family, have always liked York. It’s normally been a Christmas time pilgrimage as it trims up very nicely with lots of lights, musicians and quaint shops. It’s a two hour drive from our house and we always use the excellent park and ride facility.
Straight to Flying Tiger because Claire said the mugs are only on sale in October and they sell out quickly so we were probably too late anyway. As it happens they were down to the last half million or so. Turns out that they also had some smaller versions of a light up ghost that she already owns that were “Sooooo Cuuuute” so that had to be bought, as did the led ghost lights that were “the cuuuutest things ever”.
I should have turned the bag around for comic effect
A trip around the shops, revealed that my daughter requires a least a hundred items of clothing that she will buy with her first pay cheque although some of it she will need for work. Apparently Fat Face and Superdry and a couple of vintage (overpriced secondhand) shops are the best ones. I say overpriced but the vintage place did have some very good quality items but £200 for a jacket someone was probably buried in, is pushing it a bit. We grabbed a drink in a cafe, followed by more looking around and ended up at a pub by the river for a quick drink then home. But not before we spotted a ghost…
I thought I’d continue the American theme with pancakes, crispy bacon & maple syrup