Single female's day out

I love having days being on my own. I used to have loads of them in KL and for the most part, I wouldn't notice it, but just sometimes, I would realise and enjoy the independence and freedom I had as a young, active female in the big city.

I don't get it much these days, of course, but just occasionally, when Schrobbenmaster is out of town, I get the apartment to myself for 2 nights and I really do enjoy it (especially in summer).

My day started like this:

1. Woke up with Schrobbenmaster getting ready for work
2. Fought a battle with Pim, trying to give him his chill pill (it gets harder every day)
3. Said farewell to Schrobbenmaster and started my ritual of Gmail and Facebook
4. Showered and got ready to head out for some shopping
5. Checked Google Maps for the best way to head places

I first stopped by Witte de Withstraat to get a birthday present for Doc Vicky. Something we'd seen a few weeks before, which she was pretty fascinated by. Foot reflexology socks. She had apparently never heard of foot reflexology and how massaging certain points in your foot can affect different organs and parts of your body.

I didn't take a photo of the socks unfortunately, nor the excellent giftwrapping, but here's an excellent photo of it that I just found someone selling on eBay UK.

Anyway, after that stop, I biked to De Bijenkorf with my handy shopping list ready.

• Hand towels x 3
• Shower mat x 2
• Long handle toilet brush
• Pizza cutter

Okay, so the last one on the list doesn't fit in, but I only added that after ordering pizza to take away from Little Italy and the guy had again forgotten to cut my pizza into slices.

I ended up purchasing:

• Hand towels x 3 (good job, JY!)
• Shower mat x 1 (one less only because of the next purchase...)
• Bathrobe x 1 (and...)
• Glove towel x 1
• Long handle toilet brush (good job, yet again, and on sale too!)

And I decided to skip the pizza cutter because I figured saving the € 5 on the pizza cutter would somehow make me feel less guilty about buying a few extra things that were not on the shopping list.

I read in Glamour today that shops and supermarkets hate people who bring shopping lists with them because they are less likely to buy random things that profit the shops. And I completely agree with that. Although I had bought some things not on my list, they were actually on my 'invisible list' (except for the glove towel, but that was only € 1,50), so all in all, I actually didn't overspend.

Contrary to what I did after De Bijenkorf without a shopping list. Which was to head to the supermarket around the corner from home and instead of getting only a face sponge (which they didn't have), I purchased a fruit milk drink (so thirsty lah), a carton of milk (on the fridge list) and a can of Pringles (damn!).

After dropping my purchases at home, I waited for the real estate agent to drop by to pick up a set of keys they had wrongly passed to us... yes, they passed us a set of house keys belonging to another address. Go figure. And for the guy who measured the windows for new curtains.

When they left, I headed out on my bike again to the cinema to catch the movie, Bridesmaids, with Doc Vicky. It's quite a weird show, I must say. Quite disgusting humour, but I think Kristen Wiig did a pretty good job in her role.

As usual, I felt lazy to cook for only myself tonight. Usually when Schrobbenmaster is away, I'll just have some leftovers or frozen pizza, which I never have on normal days. So off I went to the supermarket again.

And came out with:

• Frozen pizza (of course)
• Roomboter koekreepjes (some deliciously unhealthy full butter cakes that I've never had the pleasure of trying because supermarket visits have always been functional with Schrobbenmaster)
• Bananas (trying to make up for the pizza)

I'm beginning to think that it's a bit sinful to have the supermarket so close by. And such a nice one as well.

The sun was still shining gloriously when I got back, so I opened my packet of butter cakes and snuggled in the big red chair by the window with my Stephen Fry book.

Pim decided to come and see what I was up to, and since I was already on the ground shooting the cakes with my camera...

Him in his full glory.

He had come to sit with me while I read, but I think I snapped one too many photos of him and he promptly left a few seconds after my last shot.

And now the sun is setting and I have to get on with my just-out-of-the-oven pizza!