Today has made me feel quite old. Not in the sense of aged and decrepit, but in the sense that I’m an adult, and married, and grown up. I looked at the load of shopping we bought in Tesco, and marvelled at how civilised it was, and how far from a student-esque collection of food it was. Then this afternoon Ellie and I went to a garden centre. I mean, a garden centre? That’s for adults and married couples and stuff. Which is what we are. And as much as it shouldn’t be a surprise, we were both conscious that the novelty still hasn’t worn off. We’re married. That’s still so exciting! Scary, in the sense of not being young and un-responsible (and occasionally irresponsible too), but still exciting.
On the subject of garden centres, I would like to very heartily recommend the shop we stumbled across today. The Range, on the corner of the Cowdray Centre opposite the TenPin Bowling alley, is amazing. We passed it on the way back from visiting a garden centre in Stanway that proved to be exceptionally uninspiring, due to their sheer lack of anything useful. The Range, on the other hand, has everything. And I mean everything. For those more familiar with the Westcountry, you could liken it to a small Trago Mills. There was a gardening centre, pet shop (for food and stuff, not the animals themselves), loads of craft materials, coffee shop, camping bits, kitchenware, houseware, toys… pretty much anything you could think of was represented there somewhere. What was most surprising though was that we had never even heard of it before. We’d not seen any adverts for it, we’d never been there before, we’d never heard of anyone else going there before. So, to rectify that issue, let me recommend it to you. That is, of course, if you happen to be in Colchester.
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