A rambling story and my object of desire

I have been meaning to do a little personal blogging in there amongst the commentary and "reportage" but every time I come to my computer meaning to do it, I end up playing solitaire or some other variety of time-wasting. I think I am just too mentally depleted by my job. Or something. I have a lot of interesting little stories saved up - DH and I had a night on the tiles about a month ago and I really meant to post something about that. And various other things. I had a big payout on an investment of sorts and have a few thou to reinvest or spend. That's not something I am used to. So I did something quite uncharacteristic and bought myself a lovely toy. DH and I went out yesterday to look at printers, clothing, sofas and coffee makers. We have two hideous, ancient, falling-apart suites, one that he had before I came here - many years before - and another almost as old that we got from his parents. The coffee pot was because our cheap filter-drip machine died a few weeks back. It already had an annoying crack in the plastic housing, and then someone dropped the carafe on the floor and shattered it. So we have been discussing getting a real, serious espresso machine. The printer was something DH thought we could use - a colour laser printer. And clothes - well, why not?

OK, I am not even going to try to make this story short; I'm just going to ramble. We went to our nearest suburban-sprawl retail multiplex (Fosse Park). We started with the furniture stores. We found a small sofa we liked and decided to go home with the measurements, look around the lounge, mentally rearranging it, and make the decision from home. That took a while. Then we went to look for printers at a PC World. We didn't plan to buy anything there, just look at printers. While DH was looking at printers, I wandered over to the digital camera counter. I have been thinking of taking an adult ed course in digital photography. So the guy at the counter was showing me these cameras and he put one in my hand that I just totally fell in love with. The thought inserted itself as I looked at it and felt it in my hand - "object of desire". I am not usually subject to longings for material things, except a few specific things, like gloves, and bookplates, and really elegant pens. This was sort of like that, a fetishy feeling, but it was all about the evident quality of the thing. Reader, I bought it. And I still love it the next day. This is the one. The review really doesn't do it justice. That little thing on the front that says Cybershot on it is slid upwards to cover the lens. This turns the camera off, and sliding it back down turns it on. The viewscreen is almost the whole back of the unit, except for a tiny little control panel. It has a docking station for uploading your pictures or viewing your pictures or recharging the battery. Here's a picture of our back garden, which I have named "Suburban Sky" (the picture, not our back garden), that I took with it. So, we also bought an espresso maker and a coffee maker. The espresso maker is this one. Yeah, not usually thought of as an upscale brand, but this is a serious piece of kitchen kit and surprisingly high quality. Been trying it out - DH has been trying it out all day! He's going to be a right mess about 2 am tomorrow. We couldn't find any clothes I liked. And we ordered two two-seater sofas, a chair and a footstool when we got back home. I'm all shopped out for the moment.