Fresh air and fun

We’ve spent the day out and about in the city and have returned to our hotel to relax a while before going to the Symphony tonight.  We’ve covered a fair amount of ground in a few short hours and we are pooped!

The day began with one of those peculiarly American sights (with apologies to our American friends here) – we shared the lift with a young woman wearing her pyjamas.  Now, my pyjamas are no less respectable than hers but there is no way I would dream of wearing them in a public place!  But, there she was, going out of the hotel into the shopping mall, most probably to Starbucks to buy coffee.  Pale pink velour at this time of the morning, complete with “bedhead” hair?  No thanks.

We didn’t make it that far before succumbing to a little breakfast ourselves – I’ll confess to this plate of “Cobblestone” (a variation on a Chelsea Bun with a mincemeat flavour….delicious!) and a Peppermint Mocha to drink.  The Corned Beef Hash fan made do with a breakfast panini and declared it a success too, though he was a little spooked when the guy over the other side of the shop, making the drinks, called over to ask, “Mark, do you want your drinks in mugs or paper cups?”  Had we met him before?  Did we know him?  Well, no, but of course here it’s often the practice to ask for a name when placing a hot drink order and the technology had done the rest.

We made our way as far as Macy’s, where the “Womens’ Intimate Apparel” department was our goal (Sorry, M&S, you just don’t make things like you used to!)  I stopped and smiled at this claim on some packaging – for sure I’d appreciate a whittled waist and smoothed thighs…but do I want extra swagger?!

Moving right along, then, to Paper Source, who are “Gnome for the Holidays” this year.

To Brattles Books too, where we browsed a little in Boston’s answer to Hay on Wye.

We took the Newbury Street route back, taking a look in the new location of Anthropologie where these spools of recycled fabric were tempting…though none of the colour combinations really spoke to me enough to find a way home.

I did, however, rather take to these shaggy trees which I thought had a kind of Addams Family twist to them!

I also fell for these little deer who would surely have found a place in my bag had they not cost nearly $80 – so much cosier than their Swedish cousins who appeared to be based on the same framework but made of paper rather than textile and as a result, were a little hard.

Soft or no, sadly, they had to stay there.

Throughout the day, we’ve been relieved to return to the fresh air after the stifling heat in the shops.  The topic of conversation everywhere is the weather and judging from the huge discounts being offered on Winter clothing here, the shops are feeling the pinch as a result of the unseasonably high temperatures.  Having come prepared for chillier weather than this, we haven’t got a great deal of choice when it comes to choosing what to wear for the best.

Perhaps we should go native and wear pyjamas?

Saved £10

As we left home, I was doing my mental checklist of things I’d remembered to pack, stopping abruptly when it came to “gloves”.  Did I want to go back and quickly grab a pair?  I decided against, but whilst at Heathrow yesterday morning, I dithered a little in Accessorise, wondering if I could really come to Boston on the last weekend in November without a pair of gloves in my bag.

But who needs gloves in these temperatures?!

Really, watching the TV weather forecast this morning we reflected that we could almost have left our coats at home.

And yes, sorry, Janice, it really is a year since we were snagging bargains here previously.  Time flies when you’re having fun!

Right, off to start our day in Macys this morning.  It opened at 7am, so the queue should have gone by now

Here we are (again)

It’s Black Friday and we are here in Boston after a completely uneventful and trouble-free journey (the kind we like).

Our travelling companions have found a spot on the windowsill from where they can view the goings on down below.

Shopping.

Hard not to, really.  I had spotted a jacket which I thought interesting and worth trying on.  When I asked if there was any discount on it, I was told that it had already been discounted by 30%.  Thinking that was that, I began to do sums in my head and didn’t really register the rest of the assistant’s sentence…”and because it’s already discounted, there’s a further 40% off as well”.  Take another 5% off because I have a loyalty card for that particular store (hmm…yes…!) and I took home a jacket priced at $150 for around $50.

Chatting to the assistant as she packed it for me, she asked how long we’d been in town.  She laughed when we said “oh, about an hour”.

Christmas has arrived here and I know someone who will recognise those decorations from previous years but as she doesn’t read my blog, I’ll be taking the photographs along to show her later.  Bettine (m-i-l) has been with us on our last two visits and it seems strange not to have her along this time – she felt she’d “been there, done that” this year, though when we spoke on the phone on our arrival, she was rather rueful that we were eating in Legal Seafoods tonight!

We did a quick run into the drugstore opposite and though we haven’t stocked up on Christmas chocolates yet, it’s good to know they’re there when we want them!

And though we didn’t eat in this particular restaurant, I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of the menu.  Peekytoe crab?  Johnny Cakes?  Research needed!!

Tomorrow, we’ll hit the shops for real.  The weather is unseasonably warm – warmer than at home, even, and this evening we both went out wearing sweater but no coat.  The forecast predicts gradually decreasing temperatures but well above freezing and we’ll keep our fingers crossed that it stays dry.

But first, a good night’s sleep!!

Lily and Ernie

Working through Jessica Sprague and Heidi Swapp’s Mouse Paper Scissors Give course materials yesterday, I decided to swerve off the given path and, instead of using the digital files provided, I’d create something about my grandparents.

Though I wouldn’t say the finished project is really to my taste, I will certainly use the ideas and techniques involved over and again – the Photoshop processes alone are worth the cost of the class, so useful are they.

I’m lucky to have a bit of ephemera from my grandparents’ lives: their wedding certificate, Grandad’s war record and Nan’s school report from 1912 (“She is clean and tidy, polite and well-behaved and very clever with her needle.  She is a big, fine girl, capable of doing much hard work and very willing” – destined for “service”, most surely, though that was not to be).  I used scans of those documents in the collaged background and then build the film strip from photographs of them both.

I really loved making the flowers, risking life and limb as I played with fire!  Definitely something to do more of, though sadly, not at all the kind of thing to teach in a class.

It’s very nearly finished, then.  I just need to sort something out for the lower left hand corner as an alternative to the bird motif supplied.  I shall see what I can come up with.

and finally

I couldn’t resist sharing the book of the season in Stockholm, a book of knitted Christmas tree balls with the most eyecatching front cover ;-)

Arne and Carlos have quite a following…

(and I just ordered the English language version on Amazon UK, of course)