Bridget Jones Baby

I learned a few things today.

I realised I like Renee Zellweger's pommie accent. Not that I am an expert or anything, but she sounds pretty convincing to me, and I really liked that at 43 Bridget Jones was allowed to be not quite perfect in the smooth face department. Her life has moved on but she has retained the clumsy somewhat awkward mannerisms and she still lives in her East London flat and I like that too.

The movie is a great deal of fun. If you know London well, you can play, 'I know where that is', and if you don't that's ok too especially if you enjoy oldie worldie iconic backdrops. There was a slightly adversarial but slapstick chemistry between Mr Darcy and Dr McDreamy, and the love triangle sort of develops a bit like a lopsided soufle - it keeps you guessing and I am not gonna spoil the surprises for you, but there are some. I laughed out loud and left feeling satisfied and chipper enough to face a spot of shopping.

And that was an education too.

Did you know that you can throw your grubby old boobs into as many bras as you like while you are in Target, in their palatial change rooms,  but if you buy 'em and tuck your titties in 'em at home and the bras don't fit, you can't get your money back? You can buy a skirt or a dress or a jumper or a coat and take them all back for a refund, but not a bra. So I can only assume that Target Management feel that women's breasts are disgusting, not to be trusted, and that women must really dirty 'em up at home, perhaps while they are chowing down on a curry, using their fingers as cutlery, and their boobs as plates, slopping sauce all down their fronts. Target don't want any dirty boob transfer onto their pretty little bitties. But contrary to this weirdness, I reckon my breasts might be the cleanest bits of me, but I am probably the exception rather than the rule. I learnt all this after I had trawled through the racks to find 3 different bras that might have done, except that the poor girl at the register was obliged to tell me of the lingerie rule. I asked her if I could try 'em on in store and she said, 'Certainly', 'But you are worried me getting 'em dirty at home?' I asked. She was a bit flummoxed. We danced around a little and I asked her again but in the end, I figured the rule wasn't her doing so and she surely had better things to do than argue with some crazy old gal, and I just left her to return 'em to the racks. This was quite the education.

Then still with a smile on my face, I ran into Woolies cos Stevie wants to have a little go at a beef rib roast on his new Weber. I did well and ran back up to the checkout, and bugger me, there was an empty one. That never happens! Yippee! A bloke was there about to pay for his loot that had already been bagged up, and you know what, it only dawned on him at that moment, that he was gonna need his wallet to pay for it all, and his girlfriend had his wallet in her handie ( What the fuck?) He was on the phone to her calling her to be his knight in shining credit cards.  So it was reinforced into my consciousness that if you want to walk out with stuff from the grocery shop, YOU NEED MONEY OR A CARD, or be so fleet of foot that you can take on all those undercover thief catchers. I stood incredulous for a second and then still smiling ran through the self serve checkout - done and dusted.

But you know the biggest lesson form today? It's that if you must face the shit shopping, then it really helps if you can front up after a few hours of belly laughing.