Bygone times

I'm not sure I could have managed a much lazier Saturday morning than the one I enjoyed today, emerging from bed only for coffees and breakfast. My plan to finish sorting out the music room was unceremoniously and insouciantly pushed back a week.

Once I was up, though, there was a bit of an essential tidy and clean in the kitchen, after which I set off for Chorley, listening to the playlist for this week's Electronic Ears on the way. The Minx and I were going to go for a walk this afternoon but there was some ferrying of the miniMinx to be done and in the end we went over to Bygone Times in Eccleston instead.

I've never been here before but it is a huge treasure trove of bric-a-brac or, as they put it on their website, "antiques and collectables". To be honest, I could have come out of here with armfuls of second-hand books, old glass bottles, et cetera but having picked up a lot of stuff, I put it all back down and limited myself to an oral history of the Titanic, which I thought might be useful for a music project I've been planning for years but, unsurprisingly, never done anything about.

One interesting thing about Bygone Times is that they charge you £2.50 to get in plus you're given a tag so you can get in for free on any subsequent visits. I wonder in the future we might see a bit more of this model. If you think about it, high street stores that sell anything much bigger or more expensive than a book are living on borrowed time. People go in and browse and then go home and buy online.

I think there's a model for showrooms that you pay to enter - even if only the first time - so you can look and feel the goods. I can see a Waterstones with a turnstile that charges you, say, a quid to get in so you can browse and dip into the books before you go home and spend your money on Amazon. Is that the future I want? No way. But just look what's happening to the high streets already.

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Diet news
-3.8kg AT LAST! I'm so pleased I didn't crack last night.