That wandering Bears may come...
Nov. 27th, 2009 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThe Bears (my brother and sister-in-law) came to stay last weekend. They didn't come with buns, but with tiny cheese-stuffed peppers, marmalade and a banjo (they took the banjo home with them, afterwards). The home team provided the buns.
In between the eating and the sitting up late talking, and the doing the crossword, there were entertainments. We went to a Shetland evening in Gateshead, with writer Ann Cleeves and fiddler Chris Stout: a lovely event because, as as Ann tells in in her blog, the two of them bounce so creatively off each other, Ann putting a musician loosely based on Chris into her novel White Nights and Chris thinking that this character is rather cool, and composing a piece of music that he might play... Afterwards we went for a drink at the Sage, somewhere the Bears hadn't previously been - it's not quite the same as taking them to a gig there, but it's a start.
We went out for a walk in Houghall Woods, and another along the coastal path near Seaham; we went to Hexham, and visited the abbey, and explored the town in the rain.
And we went to TK Maxx. If you aren't familiar with TK Maxx, it's like a cross between a department store and a remaindered book shop: it looks from the outside like another shop piled high with the sort of cheap fashionable clothing and characterless home decorations that I would never dream of buying - and it does stock those things, piled high and reduced in price, but there is treasure in among the tat. I've bought a lot of pottery bowls there at one time or another, for myself and as presents; I bought my favourite sauté pan there, and most of my socks;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler once found a copy of PaintShop Pro 8 at a fraction of the going price, among the children's toys. And GirlBear had never been to TK Maxx, so that's what we did.
And spent a happy half hour or so, wandering around. GirlBear went into a state of indecision at the huge choice of fancy soaps, and the many different kinds of biscuits, any of which she could have bought to take in to work, and in the end didn't buy anything. I bought: two cranberry-scented soaps in fancy gift boxes with Mary Engelbreit designs (this probably counts as a shameful lapse in taste, but I love her stuff all the way up to the line, and then something snaps, and it's just so cute it's horrible. So sue me. Anyway, that's two small Christmas presents sorted); some chocolate covered plums; The Bibendum Cookbook which I will either keep or give to the friend whose collection of cookbooks is almost as large as mine, and who is more of a Simon Hopkinson fan (the recipes look good, but familiar; but there are lots of pictures of Bibendum); and Suze Rotolo's memoir A Freewheelin' Time - what was that doing there? Even the BoyBear bought a copy of the Suze Rotolo, for the fellow band member and Dylan fan in his life.
The Bears admitted that everything I had told them about TK Maxx was true.
In between the eating and the sitting up late talking, and the doing the crossword, there were entertainments. We went to a Shetland evening in Gateshead, with writer Ann Cleeves and fiddler Chris Stout: a lovely event because, as as Ann tells in in her blog, the two of them bounce so creatively off each other, Ann putting a musician loosely based on Chris into her novel White Nights and Chris thinking that this character is rather cool, and composing a piece of music that he might play... Afterwards we went for a drink at the Sage, somewhere the Bears hadn't previously been - it's not quite the same as taking them to a gig there, but it's a start.
We went out for a walk in Houghall Woods, and another along the coastal path near Seaham; we went to Hexham, and visited the abbey, and explored the town in the rain.
And we went to TK Maxx. If you aren't familiar with TK Maxx, it's like a cross between a department store and a remaindered book shop: it looks from the outside like another shop piled high with the sort of cheap fashionable clothing and characterless home decorations that I would never dream of buying - and it does stock those things, piled high and reduced in price, but there is treasure in among the tat. I've bought a lot of pottery bowls there at one time or another, for myself and as presents; I bought my favourite sauté pan there, and most of my socks;
durham_rambler once found a copy of PaintShop Pro 8 at a fraction of the going price, among the children's toys. And GirlBear had never been to TK Maxx, so that's what we did.And spent a happy half hour or so, wandering around. GirlBear went into a state of indecision at the huge choice of fancy soaps, and the many different kinds of biscuits, any of which she could have bought to take in to work, and in the end didn't buy anything. I bought: two cranberry-scented soaps in fancy gift boxes with Mary Engelbreit designs (this probably counts as a shameful lapse in taste, but I love her stuff all the way up to the line, and then something snaps, and it's just so cute it's horrible. So sue me. Anyway, that's two small Christmas presents sorted); some chocolate covered plums; The Bibendum Cookbook which I will either keep or give to the friend whose collection of cookbooks is almost as large as mine, and who is more of a Simon Hopkinson fan (the recipes look good, but familiar; but there are lots of pictures of Bibendum); and Suze Rotolo's memoir A Freewheelin' Time - what was that doing there? Even the BoyBear bought a copy of the Suze Rotolo, for the fellow band member and Dylan fan in his life.
The Bears admitted that everything I had told them about TK Maxx was true.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 12:58 pm (UTC)TJ Maxx? Who knew? (Seems they wanted to avoid confusion with TJ Hughes - and certainly first time I saw TJ Hughes I assumed it was a TK Maxx rip-off, though apparently it's somebody's name).
And I do know that I've been lucky in my family - but I believe you have a perfectly satisfactory sister?
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 01:59 pm (UTC)I agree, that's a wonderful photo you took. It was lovely to look at on my tabs for so long! And now that you mention it, I do think I remember that 'boiled sweets' might be a lot like what I'd envisioned. Stuff like this. It's also called 'crystal barley hard candy' or some such. It's quite yummy, IIRC.