Greenfields

Life is always better with an ice-cream soda in hand, perched in a seat with a few other people around, all quietly enjoying themselves with some minor chatter about what they've bought in their trip into town, or reading a newspaper, or maybe they're writing in their notebooks. Or am I the only person doing that? It's not busy, but we're nowhere near lunchtime yet, so it'll likely get busier later.

While my particular love is of a coke with a bit of ice-cream on the top, which, I note, is a bit like Butterbeer, others go for a simple lemonade, a nice pot of tea, or a cup of coffee. Lemonade is cool, but a cup of tea is not my cup of tea (try to untangle that one, and then tell me I shouldn't be literal-minded!) and I'd only drink coffee if you paid me a million pounds (anyone want to see that and got the cash to spare?). Tea and Coffee lovers need those drinks in the morning to give them a big boost, but not of the chocolate variety.

A nice meal can be had, too, or even just a plate of chips. A father and daughter may choose to share a plate between them and play Pick Up Chips, a game not unlike Pick Up Sticks, with the bonus that you get to eat the results, and they are lovely (and possibly weighted towards the daughter, but as I'm talking about myself a fair while ago, I don't particularly care). Chips are a beautiful counter-act to the mouth freeze that ice-cream may give you, and the soda can cool your mouth down after it's warm from chips, encouraging a beautiful cycle of sweet treat and and... well, chips.

This would be the place we would go to after a decent shop around town. After going around all the shops, like, for instance, Tiger, and Lush (these two both came in later though) and Thorntons and maybe picking up yet another pair of glasses at Specsavers (I've had a few of those in my time, and it's my eyes who are at fault here, after they made an optician think I was lying because they were that bad/evil because I'm not that good at lying and I was a million times worse back then), and if there was a Lego Store in my town centre I would go to that too only my town centre isn't the greatest anyway and there is no Lego Store here (but there is one not a million miles away and you can always buy Lego over the internet or in other shops), but after doing all of your shopping, you could go here and take a break. And there are better shopping places, in better areas, but none of them have the bonus of a stopping point I've loved to go to since before I remember.

And in the days before I remember, I was much more inclined to have hissy fits because I couldn't have my way, and I had one over us not going there even though we were in town. My tiny mind at that point hadn't yet come to grips with the fact that having a temper tantrum in the middle of town was not a good way to conduct yourself, and were very much a sure way that you would not get whatever you desired, as the mother's foot that gets put down stays put down. She'll just let you yell your head off right there, and no amount of cajoling, crying, moaning, arguing, persuading, begging, whining, screaming, shouting, yelling, weeping, yelping, barking or just generally being a pain in the arse is going to unstick that foot from the ground, however much nothingness is in an atom.

A nice little corner of a shopping centre: now that's my style.