Recent entries from Melis

[chess]

Library fines again. After I'd paid them (just £1.20 this time), I went for a walk around town. First I walked through the market (the one below the car park), concentrating on the book stall (where I was hoping for a stray copy of one of the Harry Potter books, but they're obviously still in too much demand to end up on a market stall) and the video stall (I wondered if they might have Tron, because I really ought to own a copy, but no luck). The fabric stall was also pretty, but it was too busy for me to linger at.

After the market I walked through High Chelmer precinct, but it seemed all very functional and devoid of life after the market; it felt like a shopping mall 'should', all featureless-bland-advertising and minion-of-consumerism. Emerging from there, I found myself outside Ottaker's, so I went in to paw at the RPG books. They had two copies of the Epic Level Handbook, and two of Demon: The Fallen, both of which Melody's been looking for. I also had a quick scan of the science fiction shelves, but gave up in disgust when I saw they weren't stocking a single title by Greg Egan. I left by a different door than I'd come in by and was momentarily disorientated, but soon got my bearings again.

I wandered around some more, and was next drawn by Clarkes' having a closing down sale, as they've had cool stuff like collectable card games and so forth in the past. The place was mostly gutted already though, and the only thing left that I might have wanted were gel pens, but they were too expensive still; the cheapest was 99p (in a nasty pink-beige 'skin tone' colour), most of the undamaged ones in nice colours were about £1.35 each, and I'm used to paying less than 15p for the pens I use (cheap plastic biros). There were also some bright pink jeans, but there was nowhere to try them on and they looked a bit small, and some quite cool tinsel/fluff things, but although the tinsel wig and fluffy purple beanie boppers were very tempting, I realised I'd never really find anything to do with them; the wig would look wrong as my hair's so long, and I never get along with alice-band type things like the beanies are mounted on.

Wandering down the high street, I failed to be accosted by the consumer survey person with a clipboard (obviously I wasn't in her target demographic), but was accosted by a soft-spoken woman collecting for a disabled childrens' charity. She had some kind of ID card, although it wasn't really useful other than a reassurance tactic, because I doubt many people on the high street - myself included - would know what kind of ID a charity collector should be carrying. I also failed to be accosted by the anti-war protestors holding out hastily printed flyers, one of whom had a 'sandwich board' of two thin A4 plywood sections with biro-drawn and diagonally shaded 'Not In Our Name' on paper on both sides. There was also a stall a little further up taking reservations for coaches from Chelmsford for a Stop The War demonstration on the 12th of April.

I wandered on into the Meadows shopping centre, where I was tempted to go into Waterstones' (and was amused to see that they were offering HP playing cards with HP5 pre-orders whereas Ottakers were offering HP Happy Families sets...) or the other bookshop but decided I'd had quite enough of the wandering-around-bookshops bit. I bought a milk chocolate cookie (no double-choc-cherry! what is the world coming to?) which was very nice. I nibbled it as I emerged from Meadows and wandered along the river in the direction of a big arrow saying 'New Shops'. There was one new shop, a jewellry shop which was quite pretty to peer into the window of. I saw a bridge ahead and followed the river towards it, noticing the Games Workshop store on the other side of the road, which I'd failed to locate in the past.

The bridge was further away than I thought. The crowd thinned alarmingly - I don't know what parts of Chelmsford are Not Safe, I'm sure there must be some, so I was a little worried - and a couple of older teens / twentysomethings were having a lover's tiff by the river, very romantic. I did, however, see a 'painted'-looking water bird with thick green legs and toes that looked like bright green catapillers in the grass. I passed a couple of canoeing places and the Chelmsford Sea Cadets, and on the way back on the other side of the river I walked past the gasworks, which leaks. The Games Workshop shop was very small and pathetic, and there was just staff in there, so I didn't go in.

I had to turn back a couple of times wandering at this point because I kept coming across car parks. When I'd finished my cookie, I decided it was about time to head back to school. I went back through Debanhams, because they have a really cool elevator-from-the-street entrance that goes through this brick tunnel with black-painted-metal discs on the walls like ancient shields and it feels like you're going into some kind of adventure in the middle where you can't see the street or the store, and the doors you go through to get into the store look almost like a staff entrance.

Mrs Kerr was most put out that I stood her up for STEP maths 'class', but I personally thought that my wandering around Chelmsford was much more productive. enchantedmelody was also not happy, this time because I hadn't invited her along :-).

Having annoyed Mr Pattrick by committing the cardinal sin of *gasp* going to my locker (which happened to be behind a 'no entry - exams' sign sitting on a chair with a door beyond also bearing the sign; the spare sign was from the other door which had been so labeled), I was quite relieved when his incoherent threats of seeing me tomorrow because nobody spoke to him like that (I admit I could probably have been more diplomatic, but I was rather taken aback by his objections, and I had to get stuff out of my locker then go get the train, so I just pointed at my locker and said 'locker', at which point he launched a diatribe about getting stuff at other times (as exams were all day for the last couple of weeks this held little water, but I think he's annoyed about the 'travelling time' thing), so I said that I was going home, which was the point he fell back on the 'nobody speaks to me like that!' answer and also 'I haven't got time for this' and ran away spluttering indignantly into the distance) turned out to merely involve recieving the following from my smiling, obviously amused form tutor: 'I had a grumble from a rather stroppy Mr Pattrick, and I said I'd have a word with you. So consider this your word.'

I'm going to miss people who understand me.

In other news, I think I'm beginning to like the outdoors and the sun too much. I'm meant to be a pale nerdy-goth, dammit! I blame Del for this. (For no good reason, but she's fun to blame.)