J currently working on his project which is due in tomorrow, supervised by P. I'm trying very hard not to get involved. What do I know about tanks in World War 2 anyway?

My brother & his children came on Friday as a) they wanted to shop for funeral clothes & b) he felt his mother in law needed a bit of space.

Memorable moments of our shopping experience:

• A really nice lady gave up her table by the entrance to the cafe where we had lunch so I could fit my scooter in easily even though she had several bags of shopping on the seats.
  
• The cafe had low tables. I was the only one who ordered a hot lunch so the waiter brought it after the others had theirs. I was sitting there on my scooter with a space in front of me & the waiter said to my brother 'Where do you want this?' I said 'On my lap' & he proceeded to hand it to me while looking at my brother & totally avoiding eye contact with me.
  
• I had an 'aromatic duck wrap' which was seriously yummy.
  
• I discovered that a 9 year old girl trying on several items of clothing takes ages.
• I discovered that a 12 year old girl trying on several items of clothing takes even longer.
  
• As we were going down High Street younger niece started taking off her top even though it was freezing cold. Brother yelled 'Don't take your clothes off!' Older niece tried to act as if she didn't know him.
• We allowed children to go into changing rooms in Marks & Spencers on their own. We were calmly chatting outside when became aware of sounds of children screaming & shouting. Thought 'someone's children are making a lot of noise'. Slowly realised they were my nieces who were making a lot of noise. As it was a ladies changing room I had to be the one to go in & sort it out - younger niece having tantrum as she didn't want to try on clothes with labels in them.
• My brother has a bit of a warped sense of humour. There were 2 boys lying on the floor in M & S, quite why they were lying on the floor I don't know but what my brother said was 'Come on Liz leap over them with your scooter.' The woman with them just didn't see the funny side, big time! I & older niece tried to act as if we didn't know him.
• We were going down in lift & older niece said she'd go down stairs. Waited at bottom of stairs, no sign of her. She called on mobile, a bit panicky, at this point realised there were 2 stairs in shop. At same moment younger niece decided to just run out of shop with my brother following her through crowds yelling at top of his voice while I scooted off in search of older niece.
• Shops absolutely packed, long queues everywhere, didn't get everything we wanted, exhausted.
• It's really sad circumstances but I love being with my nieces. I wish they didn't live so far away.