Saturday Shopping

The first weekend of the school holidays. Well, for the children it is. The teachers, including  Carol, still have to go in to the Academy on Monday and Tuesday because they have training. Unfortunately. We went in to the Milton Keynes Central Shopping Centre early this morning and parked in Debenham's car park near Midsummer Place. A good deal easier if you park in there as I've probably mentioned on this blog before now, as you're more or less guaranteed a parking space and it's cheaper in the long run. I remember when the shopping centre opened back in 1979 and it was quite a novelty to have so many shops under one roof, you could park virtually anywhere and it was free. Now it is divided up into areas which have more expensive charges and not-so expensive and at one time there were a few free spaces if you got there early enough in the morning. But, unfortunately, the Council got greedy and made it paying. The same happened where I used to live in Bedford and the Council there put parking machines on the street so you had to  pay to park. I wonder how much business was lost when they introduced these parking machines? Quite a lot, I should imagine. At least if you park in the Debenham's multi-storey car park you can just walk in through Debenham's store and if the weather is bad it is at least under cover. We went in and went down the escalator and into Debenham's as I want to look in the menswear department as I wanted to buy some shorts. As the weather is so warm at present I wanted to make the most of it, as I don't currently own a decent pair. I had looked on heir website and saw some I rather liked. Tailored one's in particular. We found several pairs on a rail and a very helpful member of staff came to assist and I took a couple of pairs to try on in the changing room and found that the ones I tried on fitted perfectly so we paid and then went out into the shopping centre. We went into Sports Direct and bought several shirts in their 'buy 3 for £10' together with a smart Pierre Cardin polo shirt for myself. Next into Waterston's to look for the new Harper Lee book which has just come out "Go Set A Watchman" which is a sort of prequel to her other novel "To Kill A Mockingbird." I have read this book as part of a G.C.E.  'O' English Literature course I did years ago. Also, we went to see a stage adaptation of the book a couple of months ago, so we were interested in getting a copy of that and the newly-published book. It was a good deal cheaper in Waterstone's and they had a special exclusive hard-bound edition of the first book, which was supposed to be a facsimile of the original edition which came out in the early 1960's. We eventually decided to not buy it at that time. We then went to Marks and Spencer's because Carol wanted to buy a pair of trousers for herself. It took quite a while to find exactly what she wanted. From there we went to Costa coffee to have a break, lattes and a rather tasty chocolate slice to share. Good to sit for a while and rest before walking along the shopping centre and eventually reaching W.H. Smith's where Carol wanted to get a magazine on dolls houses. We found they had the Harper Lee book for around the same price as in Waterston's but we hd got a voucher when we'd paid at the checkout for £5 off when you spent £15 on books so we bought the copy of "Go Set A Watchman" as well as a paperback edition of "To Kill A Mockingbird," together with a copy of a book which has been made into a film, "The Help" and if you bought two paperbacks you got one half-price, so with the £5 off voucher we seemed to get a really good bargain.

Trip to Milton Keynes Theatre

Yesterday afternoon we went to Milton Keynes Theatre to see a production of "To Kill A Mockingbird." A touring production which started life at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London. The show didn't start until 2.30 so we went in by car and parked in the multi-storey carpark directly behind the theatre. I have never parked in there before and it meant we didn't have to walk far  to the theatre. We had more than enough time before the show started so we went into the Weatherspoons pub near the theatre and had a snack and then wandered into the shopping centre for a stroll before making our way into the theatre. We had booked our tickets on-line so we had to go and pick them up at the box office.

I studied "To Kill A Mockingbird" for G.C.E. 'O' Level, so I had a good idea what the story was about, which did help, but it was a very good production. A cast of around 12 actors played all the characters, many doubling and even trebling up on parts. The children in particular were good in the central children's roles as Scout, Dill and Jem. A very simple set, and few props. It's just goes to show that you don't need elaborate sets, costumes and so on to put on a play. An over-use of stage machinery and setting seems pointless. Just think of films in the same way; C.G.I. effects and elaborate effects don't a movie make. Decent story-telling and acting is all it takes.

When we left the theatre we walked back to the car-park. One entering we had to take a ticket out of the machine at the barrier. When you are about to leave the car-park you have to go to a ticket machine, put it in and it works out how long you have been in the car-park and you pay what it says on the screen and then, when you drive out you put the ticket in the machine at the barrier to get out. There were two machines. One was out of order and the other one wouldn't take card payment. We got there just in time as there was a queue forming to use the machine. By the time we'd walked up to the 7th floor to collect our car and we'd driven down we went back past the ticket machine and the queue had lengthened considerably. We had avoided this queue by getting back to the carpark as quickly as we had, thankfully.