Errands

A cold day with drizzle for much of the time. The demands of travelling yesterday and re-starting normal life left us both tired and we got up late. It seems I lost my electric razor charger when packing to leave, so I now have to buy a replacement. I intended to go into town in the morning but never got around to it with various phone calls and messages to tackle.

After cooking lunch, I embarked on urgent errands, including a visit to the surgery to drop off my prescription renewal form, a visit to the bank in town to deposit a small tax rebate cheque at HSBC, and to the travel agents to convert surplus euros into sterling - somewhat less than I'd expected. The cheque I had to deposit was larger than standard banking size and bank's cheque deposit machine malfunctioned, telling me that I wasn't using a cheque deposit paying in slip when I was using one. A counter clerk did the job manually for me. A slightly bizarre experience.  

Then I hunted for an equivalent razor, but couldn't find anything suitable to buy. It means a trip to the big Tesco and B&M tomorrow to see if there's more of a choice there. Finally, I went to the market to get the battery changed in my watch, as it faded and died in Spain. 

The watch repairer took it apart and got it to work, but said he wasn't sure if it wouldn't do the same thing again, due to its age. He handed it back to me with a new battery in it, and refused to accept payment for something he couldn't guarantee would last. I was willing to buy a new Casio from him but they are no longer stoked, most people want something more sophisticated. 

I have noticed that electrical goods stocked by retailers are not as many or varied as a few years back. There's less in-store choice and that may simply be a result of more people buying on-line. If you want an item that may have been state of the art a few years ago but been superceded, on-line may be your only option. The kind of electric razor bought in Boots last autumn is no longer on the shelf, and prices of ones that are on display now are that much higher. 

I discovered that a second series of the More Four French crimmie series 'Astrid - Murders in Paris' has started recently so I spent the evening binge watching three episodes in a row, although I was nodding off towards the end.