Ticking Over

 Bless asked about the bush in the corner, which I answered on the comment, but it's a lilac and it's really full of flowers.

The fragrance is beautiful. 

Bear had his first written exam today. As he put it - 23 to go. He has a biology exam tomorrow. He's doing okay.

I didn't have a walk this morning and I regret it. Apart from anything else, I'm nearly at my 6000 steps and I would definitely make it if I had had the walk. As it was, I called in to Aldi (chocolate biscuits and cheese), Tesco (salad) and Marks and Spencer (fruit). Bargains were thin on the ground. I picked up a marked down gluten free iced bun at M&S and it was grim. As I call in early, after the first mark down, I noticed that they had some yellow sticker reduced beefburgers. They looked very nice, and were chunky and no doubt full of flavour, but a pack were reduced to £3.25! Part of me can't help but remember when £2.50 for four very nice, decent, thick, fresh beefburgers was a good deal. I worry that I'm turning into my grandfather who's sense of how much stuff cost stuck in 1975. 

Bear had something of a reaction yesterday. He went into Leeds which can be quite expensive in the town centre. It's not quite as fancy as York or Harrogate, but it has a few designer shops, like Vivienne Westwood, in the town centre. I'm sure that there are others, but I can't remember them. Bear went in with a group that normally hang around places like Dewsbury or Huddersfield which are usually a lot less expensive. He also went in on a Sunday, which meant that he couldn't go on the market as it was shut. He came home stunned at how expensive Leeds is. Part of the problem is that there were girls in the group who went clothes shopping and even the charity shops in Leeds centre can be expensive. Bear is used to me hunting bargains from eBay and generally looking around for deals. With the recent inflation, bear was horrified at how much clothes cost and got the ORANGE hoodie (it's the brightest thing I've seen since the car next door but one was set on fire) from Primark. At some point I'll have to bring up 'cost per wear' but as he's still growing, he won't have to worry about things lasting long enough for him to grow out of for a bit. 

He was also proud of the multicoloured keyboard/mouse/mousemat/headset that he picked up for around £30. It has flashing lights on the base of the keyboard and on the mouse and is wonderfully bright. He got it from Sports Direct. He refused to get trainers from there as they were, in his words, over priced and too expensive, so I got a replacement pair from Amazon. He wanted a particular brand because it had lasted well in the past - a reasonable thing to consider - and Amazon are apparently good about watching for fake brands. It was still half the price of the trainers that he had seen in Leeds. 

Writing stuff - Invitation Accepted Chapter Thirteen here.

Hugs and good health to all.