Jaws and the Freak Egg

Out of the house for ten something, possibly a record. Frightened the life out of some kid or other by allowing her to ride the swinging basket with me (I ride hard) and then met Ex-Puddler Hannah (no sisters) in Tunnel Park. We played and laughed and let's just say one of our number played the giddy goat and we laughed even more.

In the butcher we met Ginger Lenny and outside was Tall Harry. This sunshine is great because all my friends come out to play. However also in the butcher was the Freak Egg. He said it is suitable for a freakish deviant such as myself so we bought it. It looks like it's made of papier mache, and I had it for breakfast the next day.

Meanwhile, Jof was failing. She had heroically managed to achieve Laundromat Failure #6, something we haven't done since 1991.

1. Place laundry, soap powder and fabric conditioner in Machine #1.

2. Place coins in machine #2, set for Unreasonably Long Wash, and go to Debenhams to ask customer services why they have sent her a letter informing her that she has cancelled her order for 2 sofas. Get told "Oh no, Madam, you have to have your order number and ring our dedicated Customer Services Hotline, despite the fact that I myself took your order at this very desk not 2 weeks ago". Jump up and down saying bad words.

3. Return at the allotted time, wonder why laundry remains dry and inert, and why neighbouring machine is whirring away empty.

Then we went to the main attraction of the day. The Mountbatten Centre (right by where I do Gymnastics) was hosting a film and TV exhibition thing that Mash at Buds' work told us about. We paid our £8 and were confronted by a series of rather sad stalls and exhibits that may have seen better days in an indoor tennis court.

We did a circuit and noticed many many Star Wars figures and Doctor Who characters faithfully rendered in plastic and the DeLorean from Back to the Future and ET and several Daleks and blokes dressed as Stormtroopers and you know, it could be quite fun but when I got a picture of me getting strangled by Darth Vader, a little girl came up to him and said "Dad, dad, can I have an ice cream" in a west country accent.

This kinda dispelled the magic of meeting the actual owl Hedwig in a municipal squash court where you could clearly see a Klingon helping a girl fighting with her Princess Leia hairbuns behind a stack of pallets in the corner. Keira from my trampolining wandered past, but Mash and Ben were not seen. However the big headline act for this intergalactic grainbuster was (inter alia) Richard Kiel who did 2 turns as Bond film baddie "Jaws" although his sterling work in the Cannonball Run series is sadly overlooked. He has his own Wikipedia page and everything. What Bud really wanted was a picture of me looking up at him, given that he is, like, seventeen foot tall. But we had to pay £20 for a signed photo after which we were allowed to have our own photo. He did his standard head-grasping pose which is his stock pose, I don't think he can stand up for fans any more. **As of 10th September 2014, he doesn't do anything any more. He will be missed.** 
But he was a nice chap and his hands are way bigger than my head and I got the photo seriously personalised. I chose the photo - Jackie Chan is doing karate.

At the other end there was a Lego Bionicle stall and I duly filled up, he bought a Terminator for himself and allowed me 4 Lego minifigures and I got a Wookie for Ben, he might well have one already but you can never have too many Wookies.

Doctor Who charges £5 for a picture in the Tardis so we said maybe later, Doctor Whatsisface in the DeLorean was much more reasonable and I think that my first car should be one of them, why wait until the mid-life crisis.

Think we'd spent enough today? No. For Jof had been sent off to get carpets for our house. We have no carpets at all, and we all quite like them so she rang us from the shop and said why don't you come over and make sure I've got the right ones, which means please come and pick me up and put down the £2,000 deposit on the rather beige-ey carpets I've ordered. So we did that. I like carpet shops because everything is soft and strange, just like Jof.

Finished? No.

Big B+Q is just around the corner so we actually walked there and got £300 pounds worth of paint and some wooden things and we all got lost and I really really just wanted to go home and play with my new Lego Bionicles and he wanted to go home and paint and eventually Jof came out of the toilet and we had ribeye steak for supper and I didn't have Bath Fizzer Night because we don't have a bath until at least Thursday, and that's only if we've ordered the correct bath this time.
He painted so I helped cut in the emulsion to the skirting boards and I bedded down at tennish.