Sugar Snaps and a Mouse

Today has been one of my favorites since coming to England. No pints of beer were involved or random snogging, sadly. I finished my paper early this morning, which was very satisfying. But that left the rest of my day open, and I did have errands to do.

At 8am I walked into Beeston for some food (grocery list in blog below if interested). It's nice on Saturday mornings at the store, because it's not really crowded and you can see the locals waking up, running their little errands. A man took his two children in for haircuts, the local florist was setting up the day's selection outside, the bakery's front windows were foggy with steam. I luckily all my groceries into one bag and lugged it down to the post office.

When I got there, an older man was standing in the doorway. I motioned toward the post office, "Is it..?"

He cut me off, "Not open."

"Do you have the time?"

He replied tersely, "10 till."

Okay, not a friendly one here, and I had ten minutes to kill. So I went across the street into the park, sat on a cold metal bench. Recently I've realized, I haven't ate anything green lately, and my culinary skills without a cookbook extend to cooking eggs and soup, so I had bought some sugar snaps at the store earlier.

While sitting there eating my sugar snaps, crunching each one with a satisfying bite, I saw something rustle in the bushes from the corner of my eye. I sat really still and eventually, two little eyes peaked out. It was a tiny mouse! Every time I sat still it would cautiously try to creep toward the bench, but as soon as I moved even slightly, It rushed back to its hiding place. We played this game for a while. I crunched on sugar snaps while playing hide-and-seek with a mouse until the post office opened, and I could get envelopes.

After this I went into Nottingham, wandered around Waterstone's. Drank tea, ate a ham and cheese panini. And yes I bought a book. I'm weak, but I rationalize this purchase by thinking it's a prize for finishing my work with time to spare. And if you're wondering, it's not a romance, but fantasy: Trudi Canavan's "The Magician's Guild". I'm only two chapters in and I'm hooked. I'll probably finish it before classes begin, so no worries.

I don't really know why I loved this day. It had a bit of everything, I guess. Finishing work, completing errands, book browsing (and buying), and tea drinking.

And of course, a bit of mischief with a mouse.