Day 6 – Kingston, 99P, Doll House and an Oyster Card

So those who know me, know I love freecycle. And last night, I found that they freecycle here too. I joined the freecycle chat and asked if there were any discount stores – like the dollar store back home - that the girls and I could visit for crayons, markers, little activities, etc. This am, I awoke to a dozen replies to my request as well as suggestions on what to do. Well, similar to our names – and no, there is no Target unfortunately - they have dollar stores. Except since they use pounds, the stores are called Poundland or 99P (the “p” stands for Pence – 100 Pence to a pound). I found that there was a 99P store in Kingston – the next town up from us located on the Bus65 - so we set off to Kingston. We found the store and the girls had a blast – we got crayons and colored pencils and a jump rope and chalk. And everything was only 99p!

After our visit to 99p, we set out to find somewhere that I could get an Oyster card. The Oyster card is the pass people use on the bus that gives a discounted fare on the bus. We were told we could buy one at the post office. So into the post office we went, took our place in the queue, waited about 15 minutes, got to the counter and found out that the Post Office does not actually sell the cards, but the attached newsstand does. As we went to the newsstand, Emily goes – “Why didn’t they say that when then sent us to the post office? Why did we have to wait in that line?” What I have found is that if you don’t ask the question exactly right, you don’t get the right answer. The person told us the post office, but what he assumed we knew was that the newsstand by the post office sold them. He got us to the correct place, but not all the way there. But we figured it out and we didn’t have anywhere that we had to be.

We had two more errands – 1 of which was another trip to the grocery store – and then to buy Scott a bike pump and we were back home. I felt like a true englishman as I swiped my Oyster card on the bus on the way back. When we returned, the girls played with the activities they’d bought at Harrods as well as they worked on the dollhouse.

Scott had taken a picture of the dollhouse when he came to look at the house and the girls were very excited. However when we got here and they opened the dollhouse, they discovered that it was in disrepair. One of the items we bought at Harrods was some glue that we could use to fix the furniture. We bought some cleaning supplies at 99p that the girls used to dust the rooms and then I helped them start to glue the missing legs, canopy, etc. on the furniture. They were having a grand time fixing everything that they didn’t want to come in for dinner at first.