today i relished having a free sunday because i don’t usually have one and work all weekend instead. i went out to a car-boot sale because my gran was selling all my grandad’s things and i desperately wanted to rescue some of his books. i could never even imagine selling any of his things at all, but luckily his books survived her unsentimental sweep and are still safely at home. his old typewriter is in the back of the car right now and it’s destined for my desk. instead i salvaged the secret garden video that we used to watch – it skips because it’s been played so many times. i also found this amazing stall selling old badges and got three mugs for £1.75. i love car boot sales - although when i think about them i get that same kind of itch you get when you think about nits, thinking about all the germs that could be hanging around on people’s old stuff!
when we got home i decided i would make some mango chicken for my lunch. i got a cookbook a few months ago to start working on my recipe skills before i go to uni, and so far i am happy to say that my attempts have turned out really well. i’m an exceptionally bad baker though, but i think i’m working towards shaking off that bad-cook reputation. i hunted for mango pulp for ages in the supermarket and now i finally have some it’s more than i know what to do with .. two batches of mango chicken for four people and it still isn’t finished.
after that i went to pick up my train ticket from the station, because next friday i’m going to glasgow to see the rocket summer [if the ash cloud actually lets them fly to the uk ..] and then doing a cross-country hop to stay in the caravan my family have hired near edinburgh because my uncle is running the marathon on saturday. i have to be back for work on saturday night though, hence the train ticket.
then i went to pick up my gran and to return my university library books to the university in old aberdeen. it was so beautiful, the sun was shining [for once .. it actually snowed on monday!] and the streets were cobbled and the houses so old. however, we walked past the building where my parents used to live and the paint was peeling, the door had no letterbox and someone had written the building number on it in lipstick .. so we tried the door handle. it opened. we tiptoed inside into the cool dimness and the peeling paint and went like spies up the stairs to look at their old flat. then we heard someone coming down the stairs so we had to slip back out the back door and hide in the garden. we laughed and hid amongst the weeds and dandelions and a cat looked out the window at us accusingly. then we went to visit the cathedral and an extremely enthusiastic man met us at the door and gave us a leaflet .. in dutch.
i got my accomodation for uni recently, it’s in student houses two minutes from campus. i’m happy with that – no rowdy student village in the middle of a really bad area for me, thank you. we can google street-view spy on it here and here. i’m not sure which street it will be on yet, but i’m hoping it’s hillhead.
* as an after-thought: i went to see kiss last weekend with my best friend alex and i like this picture. it looks like the kind of picture you would get on a xanga photo site and is a bit girls gone child-esque.
