Out For Our Weekly Shopping,

I parked in the car park,

 Diana joined the queue, whilst I walked to the High Street, queues everywhere, I went to the Quality Houseware shop for some shoe laces, by the time I had queued and shopped, when I walked back to the car Diana was still outside in the queue, it is not so bad now, but in the winter cold and rain, it is going to be miserable, it is a sad fact of life that what once was a quick in and out is now a hour or more by the time you have finished queueing, I should mention we went to Homebase, to buy some gravel to put into our garden umbrella base, but the car park was almost full, something I have never seen before, the queue of about 80 or so people seemed to be going nowhere fast, so we decided not to shop,

next stop, Kingfisheries the tropical and outdoor fish shop in Croydon Road Beckenham, 

 whilst I filled our container with RO water,

 Diana had a look around,

 taking a few photographs,

 of some of the tropical freshwater fish,

 as it happens,

 there were lots to chose from,

 if only we had a larger flat,

 we could have some of these,

 naturally with a marine aquarium, 

 or two,

 Diana was still taking a few photographs,

 so I popped outside,

 to the outdoor section,

 where there were almost countless,

 goldfish on display,

 also a nice selection of water lilies,

 in the outdoor pools,

 and a selection,

of waterside plants,

 shopping and looking at the fish over, we were home for our evening meal, a pre meal sherry,

 for our starter mussels in a garlic sauce,

 followed with a massaman curry,

 with rice,

 for dessert a few chocolate covered profiteroles, 'Cheers!',

the aquarium was getting a few strands of thread algae growing, so Diana got out her twizzle stick out and removed them, we listened to music until late, when it was then time for a New Tricks to see us up to nearly the midnight hour, then for us we were off to bed.

The Orchid,

with the large flower spike,

 was beginning to open

  and nice it looked too, 

 with lots more buds still to open,

 breakfast over it was time to go shopping, we parked in the cinema car park, and again almost had the whole park to ourselves,

 I joined the queue to go into the bank, which is opposite the cinema

 Diana went a few shops along to go into Tesco,

 next stop, to Kingfisheries Aquarium, our local tropical fish shop, it is at 308, Croydon Road Beckenham, BR3 4HR, telephone number 0208 6503716, they are open 11.00 – 4.00  Monday to Saturday, as a guide it is on the opposite corner that the BP petrol station in Croydon Road is on, 

for us we needed some RO water for the aquarium,

opps! spilt some!

looking at the rear of the shop in the outdoor cold water section,

I noticed,

that they had a nice selection of water lilies in stock,

also they had some some sterlets, (Acipenser rutheneus), it is the commonest of the sturgeons, unlike other sturgeons, this one spends all of its life in freshwater,

 in the afternoon after a few quiz shows, time for our evening meal,

 for our starter, mussels in a garlic sauce,

 'Cheers!',

 before our main course I took a photograph of the aquarium, if you look really closely you might see one or two red shrimps,  

 as I was doing that I noticed the fox waiting for his peanuts,

 he grabbed a few,

and disappeared,

 on to our main course, 

we had a lamb shank each,

 another 'Cheers!', as Diana was putting the plates in the kitchen she mentioned the fox was back,  

 and there he was, patiently waiting and looking up at our window, more nuts for him, 

for dessert Diana's favorite, sticky toffee pudding with fresh cream and ice cream, delicious! we listened to some music then we watched the television, one each from Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, and New Tricks, all of which brought us up to midnight when for us we were off to bed.