Guildford, Home of Window Shopping

Today, we kept our sightseeing itinerary simple: we pulled on our long sleeves (today, at 17*c was quite autumnal), packed up the nappy bag, and giggled our way through some David Sedaris on V's iPod on our way to Guildford. I'd promised that we could do a bit of window shopping either in Reading or Basingstoke, or Guildford. Needless to say, the last option won out as being "the most English" because our venue was a cobbled high street rather than a mall.

E was brilliant the whole time: only a tiny bit of fussing when he got tired and being allowed to roam through Gap and Monsoon (as well as a sneaky feed in the Monsoon changing room) was enough to placate him for the remainder of our trip. Though I'm sure that chips and chicken at Nando's and part of an Auntie Anne's pretzel helped as well.

For me, though I intended somewhere in the deep dark recesses of my subconscious to buy a few items of clothing to add to my wardrobe, my biggest temptation was in Waterstones. All the books, people: all the books. I considered buying Ethan no less than 7 books I saw whilst perusing the shelves in there. The Tale of Two Bad Mice, How to Catch a Star, That's Not My Dinosaur, Animal Colours...the list went on. Seriously. I have a list of books that need buying for our family on my smartphone. My own list has just added not only The Kingmaker's Daughter by Phillipa Gregory, but also The Potter's Hand by A.N. Wilson: I'm sorry, but how can I not own a novel about Josiah Wedgwood!? There's a reason my dissertation focused on visual culture and Neo-Classicism in 18th Century England...and that reason is: I'm a huge nerd.

via, the Daily Mail

To what I think is my everlasting credit, I restrained myself and didn't walk out of Waterstones with £70 worth of books. It was a near thing, though; let me tell you.

A few shirts and a scarf later, we had made our way up the high street, took a few pictures, snagged orange biscuits in Crabtree & Evelyn - where the girls on the staff gushed over E's baby blues - and were headed back to the car to drive home; the entire affair narrated, once again, by David Sedaris. (This is something I highly recommend, by the bye. About as much as I recommend The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or the BBC dramatizations of Lindsey Davis's Falco detective novels.) Can I just say? David Sedaris shines his most when he makes a witty observation about life that prompts you to think for a second before you laugh and go, "yes, actually that's just what it's like!" about something perfectly ordinary.

Meanwhile, I'm off to sleep and charge the camera for our next excursion into Surrey tomorrow. Stay tuned as my new "mommy threads" will definitely make an appearance.