Day Three

Thirty nine days to go...

Today we went to Headingley.  If you hear about Headingley on tv it is usually about sport, but Headingly also is a student quarter and has the greatest concentration of charity shops I have ever seen anywhere!

I explained to bear that we were going to see what was in the charity shops, that we could never know in advance and that if it was there today it may not be there next week.  I gave bear a £10 budget for this week, on the grounds that it would no doubt cost me a lot more than that if we went to a museum with a shop.  I set out the rules carefully.  If he didn't spend all of the money then it could be added to the next week's allowance.  If he saw something he really, really, really liked he could borrow against next week but for every £1 advance he would lose £1.50 of the next week's allowance.  This is my attempt to teach him about budgeting and the cost of borrowing.

Bear was quite clear what he was looking for.  He wanted to find Mr Men books.  He has gaps in his collection and I thought charity shops were a great place to start.  It also gets him out of the house.  Unfortunately we didn't see any Mr Men books, but bear found a Doctor Who book, a toy guitar and a toy robot and has £2.14 until next week.  Any left at the end of the summer will be carried over until we go to Cardiff.

I shall be spending a lot of time going for local walks, I think.  It cost us £6 for the bus tickets, so even going anywhere on the bus costs, then there are things like ice creams etc.  I may try a bit of a picnic in the local park, but I am terrified of the run down play equipment there and I stress when bear goes on it.  When he was tiny he used to launch himself at the stand alone pole from the top of the climbing frame and I was in no position to catch him.

After the visits to only three of the charity shops, bear had had enough so we popped into Sainsburys where I picked up some bits.  Bear made an insistent and determined request for two things, both of which I let him have.  The first request was for broccoli to have with tea, the second was a request for the times table flash card book.  I don't know where he got that from.