Christmas is coming! We have to deal with Advent first (and I have plans for that) but The Holidays have to be prepared for. So today saw me spending yet another soggy Tuesday wandering up and down Northumberland Street and round and round the Grainger market in search of present ideas. I largely succeeded I am happy to report. The pig's head on one of the butcher's stalls made a slightly disturbing spectacle but that is because I am a townie and far removed from the realities of food production.
And so to my walk, today it was the length and breadth of John Lewis. I add a link to the store floor plan so you can follow my progress.
http://d3aensyvlglrq6.cloudfront.net/jl_assets/pdf/newcastle_sg_16_05_12.pdf
I started in the basement, accessed from the Haymarket bus station. Here are all manner of homeware gadgets and white goods, plus Christmassy bits. I gave it all a cursory glance, planning to go to the top floor and work my way back down. I waited by the lifts long enough to get impatient and then tried to find the stairs. Easier said than done! If you glance at today's CCTV footage I am the suspicious-looking one peeping hopelessly at doors marked 'associates only'. Eventually I did find them, concealed as a fire exit and not signposted in any other way. They were clean and functionally decorated, a spot of graffiti or two but otherwise safe enough and under-used. I didn't see anyone else using them as I climbed to the second floor. It was all downhill from here (but in a good way).
Second floor: I emerged into the digital department. I think everyone in Newcastle must be getting a gadget for Christmas. It was buzzing, laptops, cameras, plasma TVs, other bits I didn't know I needed or wanted. I strolled round to the comparative calm of the furniture department and began to daydream of a flat furnished from the goods. On into carpets, rugs and fabrics. Still quieter but such lovely stuff. Are they looking for staff? If you can't afford it, you might as well flog it to those who can. I paused at the cafe but decided against. It looked very swish but a bit dark (getting grumpy in my old age).
First Floor: I took the escalator down. The stairs appear on the floor plan, maybe I should have taken that with me. But here - ah fashions! I do love a good browse and there was plenty to see. Charity prices they were not but everything looked lovely. I could sell this stuff. I did a quick visual check of the sales assistants and it seems as if they do let old people loose on the fashion floor. Maybe my time will come. And then I was at haberdashery, buying the bits I'd wanted to get but never got round to. It's all here, along with fabrics. Maybe I could belatedly follow my mother's footsteps into the haberdashery department.
In the interests of completeness, I went through the childrens department, deciding that the Gruffalo ceramics by Dartington were wonderful, there was a knitting dolly (House of Marbles, another Devon product), and the cuddly Elmer (£8.95) is mine if Santa is reading this! I paused at the expresso bar, a definite possibility, and gazed at the brasserie, out of my league.
Ground floor: And so to the ground level, well Eldon Square level. I browsed the handbags and the shoes, found the perfect slippers for our festive circle dancing (red velvet with a bow and a fleecy lining) but couldn't justify the £20 price tag. Meanwhile in the perfume department a mirror smashed, it can only be good luck if it happens at work, surely? I tried a little squirt of Kenzo Madly and looked for the stairs or escalator to take me back to the basement. Couldn't spot 'em. And so, unwilling to cut a dodgy figure on the CCTV yet again, I exited into Eldon Square.
Shoulda had the map!
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