Regular EID readers will already know that this site/blog is not intended to be a continuous commentary on "What I Did Today".

Let's face it, unless you're Keanu Reeves, or Ralph Fiennes (pronounced "Ray-ff" aparently), the vast majority of the public couldn't give a toss as to what colour socks you decided to wear on a particular day.

Only in my scariest of dreams would any of my readership contact me to find out exactly what brand of coffee I use to make lattés with my cheap-but-efficient espresso maker. LavAzza, before you ask.

All that said, occasionally I like to give you folks an update on La Vida Turner.

Saturday
So, Saturday, I fired up the espresso machine, made a latté, and the dogs and I spent a lot of the morning, sat on the porch, reading Terry Pratchett's, Jingo. That is to say, I read the book, they just watched the world go by.

You'll notice that the link is to Amazon's UK site, as this has the UK covers for the all the DIscworld novels. The US editions have experimented with a number of different styles - all dreadful - whereas the UK editions retain the original Josh Kirby cover designs.

Why is this important to me, you ask? Some form of late-in-the-day patriotism? No chance! It's important, because this is the 21st Discworld novel I've read, and I also have about another three to read, all with the UK covers on, so I'm damned if I'm going to screw up the aesthetic on my bookshelf!

Eventually, Sheilagh was dropped off by her "Dad", who had to pop into work. Miles ran to the truck to meet her, and jumped up, resting his front legs on the window sill. In her past two visits, it seems that Miles has fallen a little bit in love with her. This is chiefly evidenced by the amount of wrestling they do - rolling around on the floor together, holding each other in their arms*, the amount of playful affection shown, and above all, the fact that after she's left, Milestone starts moping**.

Click to enlarge

Sheilagh, Saoirse and Miles

I took all three dogs to the park, where we spent an enjoyable hour playing. It's a small off-leash park I go to a lot.

That evening, dinner with friends at Campo de Fiori in Creek***. I'd not been there before. It looked a bit pricey, but in the end turned out to be no more expensive than a trip to The Saucy Noodle^† . The seafood linguine was the best I've ever had, and the only negative thing about the whole meal was the number of very obviously rich people, who were mainly there 'to be seen' (not that it was that posh), and show off how expensive their khaki slacks were.

Sunday
I went over to a friend's place and drank tea. We sat and chewed the fat a while. Then we headed out, down to Pearl St, where there was the weekly "Farmer's Market". The stalls there seem to change from week to week, with some of them appearing one week, then missing a week, then reappearing after that.

We ate barbecue there, whilst being entertained by a bluegrass band. Now, I've never really enjoyed bluegrass as a musical form, but as of that moment, it was starting to get under my skin. If I start talking like Andy Kershaw^††, someone shoot me.

I think after you've been exposed to the horror that is Country & Western^††† music, especially that "Modern Country" stuff that seems so prevalent these days, bluegrass is a soothing alternative. Besides, almost any music played live, right in front of you is always more enjoyable than listening to a recording.

After that, we pootled around the stalls and then later on went for a walk in the park. This turned into a rather longer walk, wherein we visited nearly every "open house" that we came across. (this is where a realtor or builder selling a house allows people to come in and wander round and empty house they're selling, without an appointment)

We looked at three houses. The first was a classic example of property developer greed, where an old house with a garden had been knocked down and replaced with a behemoth house, that occupied every square foot of the property, including where the garden used to be. This was actually a duplexº and they wanted... get this... $650,000 for each half! I mean, I know it's Wash Park, but that's just taking the piss.

The second place was an old house that had just been done up inside. It had been added to, by "popping the top" to make the upstairs bedroom bigger. Way over-priced at $500,000.

The final, and frankly best house we saw, was one that'd been completely rebuilt, but retained the original frontage. It was 3,400sq ft. It was gorgeous. It was, however, $950,000. That said, we both agreed it was the nicest house we'd seen, and that we'd rather pay $950K for that, than $650K for the first place.

This caused me to do some mental arithmetic on the mortgage payment. Using my house's mortgage payment as a guide, I guestimated that the monthly mortgage payment would be about $8,500!

This sort of high finance, and mental arithmetic caused us both to need a cup of tea. So we wandered over to Gaylord St (British readers - this is not a Dick Emery reference), where we visited somewhere I like to call, "The Coffee Shop That Wasn't There."

It's as if the coffee shop was being run by the 1970's management of British Leyland.

Basically, it's a coffee and book shop that's never fucking open. It's poorly designed in its layout, to cause maximum confusion about little things like where the sodding entrance is, and everything about the interior layout is wrong, and not conducive to people wanting to stay and drink coffee.

It also seems close at really odd hours (for example, it's never open in the evenings, unlike most coffee shops in Wash Park). God knows how these people make any money. It could be such a good place, if a little effort and thought was put in.

As it was 4.07pm, that was closing time for the little shop of horrors, so my friend and I sat outside, drinking our tea, and planning how, if we ran the place, it'd be laid-out much better, have an entrance you could see from the street, and stay open more than 46.5 minutes a day. We didn't quite get as far as exactly what the recruitment policy for hiring waitresses was going to be, but I think we have similar tastes in wom.. err.. waitresses.

So that's about it. I'm impressed that you're still with me. I promise we'll return to our more regular scheduled writing any time soon.

*OK, front legs, whatever.
**English slang term for being down and sulky
***One of the more expensive shopping districts in metro Denver, but also home to some damn fine restaurants and bars.
†motto: "If you don't like garlic - go home" - painted above the entrance
††I actually do a very passable impression of Andy Kershaw, and can make up fictional but real-sounding African bands he might introduce, such as Umberto Umbongo, with his latest hit, "Three Blokes Banging A Length Of Piping".
†††A.K.A. "Both kinds of music".
ºA pair of semi-detached houses if you're British. They also use the term 'triplex' to describe a building with three residences, but bizarrely don't call a four residence building a quadplex. They call that a four-plex. Go figure.