Lovely Friday 13th!

Busy day off.  Car was booked in for an MOT at 8am, so I had to get up at 6am as usual. Emptied out all the crap stuff I carry in the boot, and took out the Bandits child seats. Dropped car at garage, and walked into town. 

Went to WH Smith's to buy a newspaper and some birthday cards, then headed to Waterstone's to use the £25 voucher I got at Christmas.  God - is there anything lovelier than a bookshop and money to spend? 

I wandered around for ages, and eventually bought 3: Poetry Please with a foreword by Roger McGough, including the most popular poems in Britain. I'm a big Robert Frost fan, and there are several of his in there, plus all the goodies we used to get in English at school. 

Also, Karen Campbell's 'This Is Where I Am', a story of a Glasgow woman who is assigned to act as a Scottish Refugee Council mentor to a Somali refugee and his little daughter, and the lessons they teach each other.  'A generous big hearted depiction of life behind the statistics'.

And Carlos Rusiz Zafon's 'Prisoner of Heaven', a follow up to his 'In The Shadow of the Wind', a  novel set in the Barri Gothique of Barcelona, in the 19th Century, which I read and loved a couple of years ago. 

After making my book purchases I took myself off to the Willow's Café (on the extreme left of this photo) for a cup of milky coffee and a toasted cheese and bacon croissant.  This area of Perth is called the 'Café Quarter', as the left hand side of St. John's Place is given over to restaurants and pubs which have tables and chairs out on the pavement in the continental style.  Such a shame we don't always have continental weather. 

On the right hand side of the photo is St. John's Kirk, so named after the Reformation preacher John Knox, who preached is famous sermon 'The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women' from the pulpit in this kirk.  It has stood here, slap bang in the middle of Perth, since the 1500's. 

There used to be a graveyard all around it, now covered over with paving slabs and cobbled streets, but still with ancient corpses buried below. 

After a bite to eat I headed off to the shops, and had a really good potter around on my own, treating myself to a nice top out of Fat Face, a cardigan out of White Stuff, and a pair of skinny bootcut jeans from M&S. 

As I sat in the High Street, resting on a bench in the sunshine, the garage eventually phoned to let me know the car was ready.  Wish they had phoned before I spent all that money! 

Anyway, car only needed minor repairs to get through, so after parting with £72 I headed off to Tesco to buy some food for tea, which has just been despatched down our hatches. 

G is now waiting on a friend to take him out for the evening, and I am awaiting an evening of sofa time to watch a French film called 'Amour', which I taped a few nights ago. 

Jeezy peeps, seriously - when life is good, isn't it good? 

Hope you all have something lovely lined up for this weekend too.  Happy Friday Blipmates.