A Sunday Outing

Sunday morning I went to church at 10am as usual. I made plans to go to the the church women’s small group the next day with Sarah, but my only plans for the day involved laundry and maybe a nap. However, I checked my phone when I got out of church and found a text from Mini. It went something like “Hiya Hope, if you fancy a day that doesn’t involve Miark or Roger I am going shopping in Newcastle in about 30 minutes and you are welcome to come if you like.” So I went home long enough to say hi to Claire and tell her where I was off to before being whisked off for a day in Newcastle. It may sound a little random for Mini to up and go shopping in Newcastle, but he is a performer who does shows for schools and other stuff, so when he’s not booked for something apparently he’s got enough time to kill to galavant around shopping. First we went to the MetroCentre, the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe. It is the biggest mall I’ve seen since I was in the Mall of America in Minnesota. It is huge! Like the Mall of America it has a kid’s area/theme park in the middle of it with rides, roller coasters, games, food, etc. So we wandered that for a bit, found a pub and had lunch. It was really nice, although the ordering was kind of silly. We found a table (it was PACKED) and then decided what to order, and then Mini went down and ordered and gave them our table number, got the drinks himself, and then they brought the food up to us later. It was a wait, but the food was lovely, and it was nice to relax and eat and talk. I do go to restaurants with friends, but it’s always on-the-go so it’s nice to just sit and chill.

Then after that we did a bit more wandering before going to Ikea to look for a sofa for Mini’s house. Ikea (which I am told we have in America, although I have never seen or heard of one) is a huge home store that sells furnishing and kitchen stuff and all sorts of decorations. The store itself isn’t that big but the way it is laid out there is one big loop you walk to get everywhere, so it felt like we spent hours in that store. It was hilarious though, Mini is a very energetic and animated person, so he is a riot to shop with. He would mime washing his hands under every kitchen sink and lay down on all the sofas and rugs and crawl through the holes in the walls of the kid’s areas. He also bought this awesome little thing. It is a light that you click and it lights up this LED blue color.

So I had a lot of fun wandering around the store with him and critiquing all the hideous furniture and stuff.

After that we drove around a little bit of Newcastle, which is an architecturally gorgeous city. We had to drop by and give a printer to someone so I got to see some of the sights, including a new performance/art center and the Millenium or Winking Bridge (it tilts upwards and “winks” to allow boats and stuff to go under it). Then it was home after a long day of shopping and sightseeing.