Hair Cut

I went to get my hair cut yesterday. My hair was beginning to get untidy and as the weather was a good deal milder and sunnier it seemed a good excuse to get mine cut.  I have been going to Essential Barbers in Monkston for a couple of years now. I used to go the the Central Barbers in the Food Centre, the shopping centre near the main Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. But then we found ourselves in Monkston a couple of years ago, I don't remember how or even exactly when and we came across a Budgen's and I think did some shopping for essentials there (the unit is now a Cooperative store.) We found that there was also a fish and chip shop along from Budgen's which we tried (but decided that it wasn't anywhere near as good as the Brother's fish and chip shop in Eaglestone and haven't returned since. Also, between all these, Essential Barbers. I found that they were far easier to get to than the barber's in the Food Centre, gave a better service and above all were cheaper. The other one kept putting their prices up which wasn't a particularly good selling point in my opinion. I know these companies have to cover their running costs, and in particular things such as Business Rates, rent, electricity etc. but if you keep putting your prices up then you risk loosing customers. As I'm now retired I get a reduction in the price which is a good enough reason to go to Essential Barbers. I can park the car immediately outside and, if I arrive at 9.30 I can usually get my hair cut immediately. I'm all for being punctual and in this case, it pays off, because yesterday, even though quite a gathering of customers arrived well before they opened up at 9.30 and was in the chair having my hair trimmed almost as soon as I walked through the door. My hair usually needs cutting between every 4-6 weeks. It hadn't been trimmed for much longer than that so I was in a serious need of a cut. If I keep it short it's easier to dry when we go swimming so I did need it done particularly for that reason. I'm probably more fortunate than a lot of men my age in that I have kept my hair, although it's gone grey, I haven't had to suffer baldness, thankfully. I think I owe that to good genetic material, passed on I think from my maternal grandfather who had plenty of hair on his head. Although I think through him I probably inherited my heart problems. Carol has her hair done at Arcana which is at Shenley Brook End. She last had it done a couple of weeks ago. They have started doing men's hair their, and I had considered going to get my hair there, but I think it's a question of what you know and trust, as Essential do what I like with my hair as I'm a bit fussy about that sort of thing. No point changing just for the sake of it.

A Little Fall of Snow

We went shopping at the brand new Morrison's store at the leisure plaza. We have shopped at the Morrison's at Westcroft and did so in the build-up to Christmas when they ran a promotion whereby you had to spend at least £40 a week for six weeks and got a voucher for each week and then when you had six of the vouchers you got £25 of your Christmas shop. Carol had a hair appointment at 9 o'clock at her usual hairdressers in Shenley Brook End at Arcana, and that was completed by 9.15 and then we drove to Morrison's (Westcroft Morrison's is a good deal closer to Arcana, by the way.) We parked in the car in the underground carpark which is similar to Sainsbury's in Witan Gate (around a mile away, and was a brand new store around two years ago when it moved from the Food Centre in the centre of Milton Keynes. Likewise, Waitress moved to their brand new store earlier this year from the centre of Milton Keynes.) We went to give it a try the other evening after Carol had finished work. It's a very much bigger store and seems to have all the services that we have got used to but we weren't all that impressed by the meat section as some of the meat, displayed in refrigerated units, didn't look very inviting as some had turned a nasty colour which denotes that maybe the refrigeration isn't cold enough which put us off buying. They will have to check that their units are cold enough because we had a similar experience in Asda a while back and meat that looks the wrong colour to be stored at the correct safe temperature isn't going to help anyone as who wants to get food poisoning?

We got home and unloaded the groceries we had just bought in Morrison's and no sooner than we had sat down to have a cup of coffee than we saw it snowing outside in the garden. It didn't last long and didn't settle, so no inches-deep blanket all over the centre of Milton Keynes and no closed Milton Keynes Academy on Monday as expected and, indeed, forecast on the local television weather forecast. Never mind, it may cause havoc over the next week or so.

Can't Start . . . won't start . . .

Drove over to Arcana Studio hairdressers in Shenley Brook End early this morning. Carol wanted to get her hair done and we went on the off-chance she could get an appointment. We arrived in the carpark at 8.30 and they weren't yet open, but once they came to open up we went in and managed to get her an appointment for 11.30, which meant we could go into the city centre as we needed to go to the bank. On returning to the car we then found it wouldn't start . . . we're back on this again, unfortunately. After several more attempts it still wouldn't play ball. Our car insurance is with Swinton and fortunately we have breakdown cover and after a bit of phoning we managed to get a call-out and the breakdown truck arrived. Carol re-arranged her hair appointment while the driver tried to get the car started. Still nothing as regards getting the car to start. He suggested it was something to do with petrol getting into the engine or something. Having spent quite a bit recently, first getting the car through it's MoT and then getting the clutch cable replaced, we imagined the car was going to be fine for a little longer. It had been fine yesterday when we went shopping in Sainbury's and then when we went to Toys R Us for the bicycle. To cut an extremely frustrating and drawn-out story short . . . the car was put on the transporter and I went with the car back home where it was dropped off while Carol remained to have her hair appointment and came back via taxi . . . we later telephoned Mark who had repaired the clutch cable and who told me on the telephone that we we attempt to come out and look at the car-not-starting situation and, hopefully, tell us whether he could resolve the said situation. So our outing to Whipsnade is on hold until the car is back up-and-running, which hopefully won't be too long or costly. The joke is, now we've got the bikes we probably don't need the car as much. We need to get locks so that we can cycle to various shopping centres and leave them and lock them without the fear of them being stolen. Also, I would like some sort of pannier-attachment on mine so I can carry shopping. It will also be easy to cycle to church on a sunday and leave them outside as there are cycle racks. No point going to all the effort of getting these bikes if we don't use them. We should also be able to get to D.W. Fitness near the stadium which will mean we get a double benefit of exercise- swimming and bicycling there and back. I have noticed that there are cycle racks outside when we've been recently. Also, when we were waiting for the bus to leave the shopping centre I saw quite a few cycle racks near the shopping centre.
No sooner had the car been unloaded from the wagon than Carol turned up in the taxi. I was surprised how quickly she had managed to order the taxi and the then get her lift home. On arrival back home we decided to get the bus into the city centre as we still needed to get to the bank as we are going to need to pay our landlord our deposit in monthly instalments and needed to get to the NatWest branch in the centre to set up a direct debit.
We got the bus from the bus stop near the Academy. We went a different route into the city and got off the bus near Midsummer Place shopping centre. We walked through the shopping centre to NatWest and managed to get the direct debit set up. Having finished in the bank we came out and went back into the centre, going through Marks and Spencer. On the way through there was a lady doing market research on a new range of Mexican food, and it was great to be asked our opinion on this. I did think, though, that some of it was very expensive. For example, a sort of 'mix-and-match' platter of food 'bites' was rather over-priced at £7. I think they are getting customer feed-back on future 'buy two meals for £10' or something. Actually very good value when you consider they usually include a bottle of wine which separately costs around £4-£5. It seems most of the major supermarkets do these 'meal deals.' We quite often buy them, especially at the weekend.
Having bought a card for Steve and Chloe's first wedding anniversary which is this weekend (can't believe it will be a year.ago. How time flies.) we decided we wanted something to eat. At first we were going to go to Pizza Hut, but there was a queue and changed our minds and opted for Giraffe where we've been before. We soon got a table and the meal was served quickly. Having been somewhat frustrated and annoyed with the car breaking down it was good to relax for a while.
We walked down the shopping centre and ended up in Waterstone's and looked at their 'buy one get one half-price' book offer but then decided we'd go to The Works where we ended up buying three books for £5. Then we walked down towards John Lewis and out towards the bus stop near the theatre and caught a bus back home.