Jenny's Adventures in the Town of Colchester

Yesterday I bravely sallied forth into town all by myself in order to get a lot of Christmas shopping done (in fact all of it). This was very brave of me because I have only ever sallied forth into town once before, and then I was with Steve, and it was rainy and bleak and I was depressed with all the rainy bleakness so I wasn’t paying any attention whatsoever to where we were going. Colchester is a nice little town, and it was sunny and cool yesterday so I did not object to wandering around the town for a while. I only had three very serious missions to accomplish, which were my Secret Santa present and Jane Patton’s present and the library, because those have to be sorted out soonly because Jane is heading off home and Secret Santa will take place on either Wednesday or Thursday (I forget which) and my books were due at the library.

First I wandered in and out of charity shops (there are lots) and heroically didn’t buy any books although I wanted to very badly, but I knew that I had to save my money to buy presents for other people. I had no idea where anything was, but I wandered about very pleasantly anyway because I did not have anywhere specific that I really had to go to, and in this way I found lots of cool stores, including one called Traders of the East (or something like that) that was a proper headshop and made me miss Portland, and a Waterstone’s and a HMV and other nice things. And I found the library by wandering around until I saw something that looked familiar and discovering signs. Stalwartly.

This wandering business was fine for a while, because I didn’t have anything particular in mind, but ultimately it became problematic because I kept seeing things that I viewed as options for presents, and so I would go off somewhere else to look for other options, and by the time I had decided that the first option was the best one, I had no idea where that store was anymore. The box that contained the final Secret Santa gift was ripped at Woolworth’s, and I went to so many other places looking for a different one, and nobody had any. Not Debenham’s, not the electronics store, not Peanuts (well, they did, but very fancy shmancy ones), not the Co-Op Department Store, not Marks and Spencer’s–nowhere! And then I had to find my way back to Woolworth’s. And when I would go off to do price comparisons between, say, Virgin and HMV, I would find myself incapable of finding either one.

Plus on the rare occasions when I had a vague general idea of where I wanted to go (e.g., go straight down this road until it ends and then take a right), I would espy shops that looked promising and pop inside, thinking that I would just pop inside and then come back out and then continue on my way. But for one thing, all the big shops have doors on both ends, and I kept coming out the wrong side of the store and having no idea what was going on; and for another thing, when I came back out of the shop on the right side, everything looked different because I had turned around and I had been so focused on going straight that I hadn’t paid attention to which shops I was passing so I didn’t know which direction to go straight in.

However, I was wholly successful, and I bought:

1. Jane’s present
2. Secret Santa present
3. Several small things to stuff in Steve’s stocking (oo, how alliterative)
4. a tiny thing for Mum
5. a tiny thing for Bonnie
6. Eileen’s present
7. wrapping paper
8. three books for myself

In defense of the final purchase, can I just say that I was wandering around totally lost with no notion of how to get back to the bus station or find a bus stop that picked up the 78 or the 61, and I was tired and my feet hurt and I had a bunch of bags and there were all these alluring charity shops, and this one charity shop, it had books all 3 for 2, and I just wasn’t strong enough to resist. I bought Lorna Doone (which is not quiet and peaceful like Black Beauty, apparently, which is what I had always supposed, but actually swashbuckling and exciting!), The Moonstone (to be abandoned when I leave, as I already have a copy), and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (by Jeannette Winterson, about whom I have heard good things). And it was only £2 for the three of them.

And you know what’s just cruel? It’s just so cruel. At Virgin they had all of Sex and the City, all of it ever, all six seasons, for £49.99, which is a hundred American dollars, which is like a third of what they’re charging in America for the big pink set of all the seasons, and it doesn’t do me any good at all! Because it’s the wrong region! Stupid region system. WHATEVER, you big stupid region system pooface.

(I handle disappointment with grace and maturity.)