Winter Wonderland

It was cold and frosty again last night but not quite this bad :-) This is the display in The Centre, Milton Keynes. I drove out there to acquire a pair of much needed new boots.
I hate shopping centres and clothes/footwear shopping at the best of times, so I do as much as I can online and only usually for shoes or boots when the old ones wear out. As my old boots are now about ten years old and starting to look a bit the worse for wear I thought it was about time I replaced them and you really need to actually try footwear on before you buy it, so I took the plunge :-)
After parking in the car park I went to the nearest machine to get a ticket, as I approached I could see a small gaggle of older ladies gathered around the machine trying to get it to work. I stood patiently with coins in my had while they faffed about trying to pay unsuccessfully with a credit card whilst complaining loudly. I offered as much help as I could but I don't really know how these new fangled machines work either. They eventually decided that the machine wasn't working and I moved forward to buy my ticket when one of the ladies said "this machine doesn't take coins" and pointed to a sign that said "NO COINS? USE A MOBILE", I tried to explain that I assumed that meant if you didn't have the right change you could pay using a mobile phone but they all insisted that the machine wouldn't take any money and if I tried I would lose my money, which did put me off a bit. I then decided to have the courage of my convictions and put my money in..........and out came the ticket......no problem......so off I walked with my ticket muttering under my breath about people not reading things properly, leaving the group of ladies to stand and discuss and complain amongst themselves. I'm not usually that unhelpful but I had already wasted nearly 15 minutes standing in the cold and my patience had run a little thin.......The moral of the story is.....if you see a gaggle of women round a parking pay machine.....use a different one ;-)))