Saturday 12th February 2011 – To Sittingbourne, and other shopping

Today, we went out soon between 10 and half past. Off to Sittingbourne and the telescope shop again. The sat nav got switched off in disgust when I listened to it and not the proper navigator! When I go up to Sittingbourne for meetings, I also go up the motorway so I was sort of on auto pilot. I had remembered most of Luiji's instructions that he gave us at the astronomy club the other week. If the traffic lights hadn't stopped us in front of the NAG building, I would have missed the left turn to the Industrial Park. I recognised the NAG offices from our last visit. We arrived there without any hiccups. Luiji had the bits that Dave wanted to get, apart from a special cable that's not essential until you need to upgrade the software.

On our way home, back towards Faversham, Dave mentioned that there used to a tropical fish shop along there somewhere, and soon afterwards I noticed a sign for fish and reptiles. We turned round and went back to investigate. We went to the reptile shop first, Lost World Reptile. They had some lovely beasties in there. We checked out the leopard geckoes for Kat. They didn't have the strange colours like the ones we looked at near Canterbury the other week. They were £40 there and you could get a starter set up. Although the guy was recommending buying a plastic box to start with. Not sure about this idea. We'll have to see. We then went to the Little Fish Shop. They had lots of choice and good prices too. They had a massive tank near the entrance to the shop with a big cat fish thing like Stig at Swallow Aquatics. There was also another big fish. The info said that he was rescued and was recovering. His previous owners had tried to kill him by putting bleach in the tank. How can some people be so evil! Out the back of the shop, they had rabbits and birds, including ducks and chickens. Didn't see any guinea pigs though.

Back in Ashford, we went for a look around Bybrook Barn Garden Centre. Checking out their parrot type birds, they have a beautiful Macaw in there, Jacob. The sign said “I do like a stroke but it is at your own risk as I also bite”. I know what these beaked types are like, I wasn't going to take any chances! Moving on through the rest of the shop, I bought a desk calendar that was reduced to a couple of pounds and we checked out the jigsaws which they have moved yet again. On to the American Diner, Dave had the 10 piece breakfast again. I had a ham and cheese toastie with chips. It was lovely. I decided against having a dessert but must go back and try their cream soda and vanilla ice cream float one day. Then on to Jays Pets where I did a spectacular trip up the step without touching the floor or getting hurt. Unfortunately it was noted by the guys in the shop. They have some even smaller leopard geckoes for £35 and their tank set up works out at £110. They are cheaper than anywhere else we have seen and almost on our door step. We had a wander round Hopeless (aka Homeplus). For all that the building is rough, run down and has a leaky roof, they have some very expensive furniture. It is very good quality stuff, but all too big for our house.

Back home, I cleared out some old paper work from a cupboard while Dave did the ironing. Then we parked ourselves in front of the TV to watch an old Steptoe and Son film which was mildly entertaining. At Chris's later we watched “Inception” and “Cats and Dogs”.