Saturday mornings always have the same routine in our house.
Alarm goes off at 6.30 and I know I have half an hour before I have to get out of bed.
7am - get up and head for the shower. Once dried wrap in dressing gown and go downstairs to make a cup of tea and let dogs out (invariably Nig is still snoozing)
7.30 - take tea upstairs, kick hubby awake (yes kick) dogs usually jump on him as well, sip tea, put on makeup, get dressed dry hair.
By now Nigel should have made his way to the bathroom, though occasionally by this point I usually have to get stroppy with him.
By 8.15 I am usually giving instructions to kids, feeding dogs, sorting out purse to make sure I have everything and heading towards car to drive to town.
8.35 - Having found my usual parking space (tendency to forget where I have left car if I don't park in the same spce) Nig and I are walking around the shopping center (renamed the mall) in while waiting for bank to open.
Now at this time of the morning there isn't much open. Next is, Debenhams is, so is Woolworths. We usually are in Woolworths to see what bargains are to be had in the toy department and making a note of what to buy the boys for Christmas. We have been known to have bought a few things to hide away for Christmas by now as well! Once the building society is open we head there so that Nig can transfer the housekeeping money into the joint account for me to spend on exciting things like food, bills, and more bills!
Then we stop at Debenhams for Breakfast. For some reason Nig loves doing this, think it may be that this is the only time he gets a cooked brekkie! Final wander around the shops, for gift ideas then we head for home stopping off occasionally at Asda to do the weekly shop.
Why so early?
We both like to get out of town before it gets crowded and before the various factions that make up our multicultural town descend. It has been known for there to be fights amongst the different races, often leading to bloodshed or for the police to be called in. Of course it is now the footie season as well, so we will also have to try and avoid the football crowds when the town is playing at home.
It is a nightmare. I hate our town centre but unfortunately the building society will not let us transfer funds from one account to the other via the internet. I prefer going to Watford or Milton Keynes but that isn't always possible especially if Nig has to get back to go to work - he has a lot on in private work at the moment, so the local town centre and the sooner I get there the sooner I can come home again!
The centre management are undergoing a refurbishment programme to make the shopping mall more welcoming, but this has come at a price. Most of the shops that we used to like visiting have now closed as the cost of the rents had risen to levels which didn't make them viable to trade there, so they have moved on or gone into receivership country wide. There are a lot of 'cheap' stores there now, which have their place, I have no doubt, but they never seem to have anything in them that I would want. Also they have just done up the indoor market, it looks a lot brighter and cleaner than it used to. However again the rents have gone up and most of the stalls are empty, my favourite stall is no longer there. The butchers have closed, the grocer is gone, the toyshop disappeared.
So now I am home, the sun streaming through my window, washing out and housework done. I have ironing to do but that can wait, my leg is painful and I am going to put it up. My trip to town is over for another week 
