11 September 2003 | 9:07 a.m.,

pottering, swimming and shopping

I went swimming again yesterday and did my 32 lengths. I was trying to go a bit slower and not stop for as long or as often. I have this tendancy to swim too fast and then have to stop every couple of lengths for ages cos I'm totally out of breath. I need to pace myself better. Anyway one of the old biddies who is there every week saw me and was like "morning! you made it then? You missed last week!" Well excuse me! I wasn't aware they kept tabs on my attendance!!

In the afternoon I decided to go shopping. This was the first time in nearly a fortnight [shopping for groceries doesn't count as far as shopaholism goes, i had to eat!] and the last time I only went to buy an umbrella which I really needed anyway, to kill time while my car was in teh garage.

So yeah I was looking forward to my shopping trip. I planned to be restrained in so far as not buying any junk that I hadn't intended getting - like books or magazines. But I had seen an advert for the seconds parts of the new Buffy and Angel boxsets so wanted to go and pick those up as well as get one or two things I needed from Boots and post a letter. But I went to pay at the till in Boots and realised I had forgotten to lift my bank/credit card wallet from my jacket pocket at home and I only had £10 in my purse. So that curbed my spending somewhat and I didn't even get the videos. Darn. I was in a bit of a funk after that and couldn't really enjoy the window shopping either.

I parked at the free car park down by the river rather than run the risk of having the man at the multi-storey car park comment on how long it is since he has seen and make me feel like a shopaholic freak yet again!! But it was a nice afternoon so the walk wasn't so bad. And of course I wasn't weighed down by the video boxsets I'd expected to be carrying back to the car.

Today I might be going to play badminton again [exercising two days in a row? can that be right?!?] if Mezie is feeling better than she yesterday and I even may have plans tomorrow - going to the cinema with my mum to see Calendar Girls. I wasn't planning on seeing it particularly but since my mum expressed interest in seeing it and she normally never wants to go to the cinema [soooo expensive..] I thought I'd better take advantage of actually having someone to go with for once. Lately I always seem to end up going myself because some people have no spare ££ and others just don't want to.

Aside from that I think I'll just potter around and get some stuff done, like write my friend Carrie who's letter has been lying there for about 3 months. I'm getting so slack its not funny... The weather is pretty crappy so far this morning so not really a day for much else.