Monday 27^th Well, that was another good day. I couldn’t sleep last night coz I was excited coz it was Emma, me, Dougie, Freddie and Ralph all going to Manchester today. Hayley was meant to be coming but couldn’t so there were just us two girls with them.

I went to Emma’s at about 10:30 am and she told me that we didn’t have to bother with the train coz her dad was going into Manchester to work so he’d drop us off. She’d told her parents who was going but I daren’t coz I know how mine would react.

We really wanted to go but it was too early for her dad so we had to wait half an hour before we could go. In that time, Emma managed to scrub [borrow] £8 off her parents.

Eventually we got going and arrived in Manchester at about 11:30. Her dad just parked at the college so we had to walk from there. It’s a good job I know where I’m going coz Emma doesn’t have a clue! We got to The Arndale Centre then I showed her the fountain outside the Warner Bros. shop where we had to wait for them at 1:00 pm.

We were far too early so we wandered round the shops for a bit and ended up in the toilets in Debenhams. When we came out of them we worked our way to the ground floor to try and get out. [Still easier said than done in that place.] When we got to the bottom of the escalator, I spotted Dougie with his mum in the women’s clothes section so I waved to him. He smiled and gave me a look like he wanted us to go. Poor lad, stuck shopping with his mum. How boring can you get?!

So, Emma and I went to get some sandwiches from Tesco and had another walk round. We kept going back to the Arndale. We were just going back out onto Market Street when somebody came up behind me and put their hands on my shoulders. It didn’t half scare me and I yelled, “Oh shit!” and turned round to see Dougie grinning at me.

He was hungry and it wasn’t 1:00 so we had time for him to get summit to eat. We went in McDonald’s but the queues were really long and he ended up getting an ice cream.

Every time we walked past the Arndale, we went back in in case Freddie and Ralph were there. Between times we ended up walking up to the Town Hall and having to get a tram back to the Arndale. Then we went back in the Arndale.

They still hadn’t come so we got Dougie to phone Ralph and his sister said he’d come. We walked back to the fountain and Dougie saw his mum and sisters ad they said they’d seem ‘em and Dougie spotted them so we ended up legging it after them.

We caught up and went back in McDonald’s. As we were queuing up, Dougie and I had chance to tell Ralph and Freddie about Emma falling in the stream which sent him off laughing again and Emma went really red. I got a choccy milkshake and we all set off walking again.

Ralph wanted to go in some cooking shop (don’t ask me why) which was on Deansgate but we ended up walking miles round the back streets of Manchester trying to find it. He swore to us he knew where it was! We also had to put up with him singing, “If you want my body and you think I’m sexy, come on baby let me know”. They’re the only words he knew too!

We were just outside Kendals, trying to cross the road, when we heard all this yelling and “fucking” going out. At first we thought it was a fight coz there were a few men running about grabbing this other one, until we saw blood everywhere. We thought he’d been stabbed but then we saw the broken glass door which we think he’d been shoved through. We didn’t stay to see what happened coz a crowd was forming and we didn’t want to get in the middle of it all.

We eventually found this shop of Ralph’s (after he nearly got himself run over by a bike) that he worships and it was full of old women (Ralph included! Soz, that’s tight.) but it didn’t have what he wanted so we went in the music shop with Dougie to get a drum book but they wouldn’t sell it him without some CD so she came back to the Arndale (again) with the rest of us.

Dougie had to meet his mum there coz of a dentist appointment so he said bye and ran ahead.

Ralph is quite funny in his own sad little way [Heh. I was totally starting to fancy him…] and so’s Freddie so it was actually better than I expected after Dougie went. We went round their shops and stuff and they wanted to go in the lingerie shops but we wouldn’t let them!

Emma then complained that she wanted to go in one of her shops after stopping off in the toy shop where Emma and Ralph had a pretend fight with the plastic guns. Ralph asked for sparklers but got told he was too young. We also stopped in the outdoor sorta shop to look at the skiing gear and Emma was going in all the tents. We decided to get out of there before we got chucked out after getting funny looks from the staff! [God, I bet we were so annoying!]

We went in the shop she wanted to go in after going in the sports shop to get Ralph a tennis ball. Oh yeah, Freddie supports Man Utd too which is good. Emma’s shop was full of weird stuff including this gorilla which sang Macarena when you clapped at it. Freddie bought one of those keyrings tht beeps when you whistle at it. So, on the way back to the station, we had Ralph bounding his ball and Freddie whistling and beeping. We were going to take it in a library or summit but we couldn’t find one. [Good. Don’t be twats, kids.]

On the way to the station, we found a big slippy marble rock so we were climbing all over it until Freddie started panicking coz he had a paper round at 4:30 pm.

We passed these esculators too on the way with no-one on so me, Ralph and Emma all went down on the up one and up the down one, pretending we were on the travellator on Gladiators. Then we raced each other to Freddie. The ground felt like it was moving under my feet. It was really weird.

When we got to the station we were on the wrong platform and a train was coming so we legged it all the way down the steps, under the track and up to the other platform and it didn’t bloody well stop!

Our train did come and we got it to Freddie and Ralph’s stop. Ralph was doing sit-ups on his seat and signing again and we all got some funny looks from passengers. When we got to their stop, we got a bus to Freddie’s village and then walked across a field to Freddie’s house so they could both get their bikes for the paper round.

We went round the back and Ralph yelled to Freddie’s mum, “Look, Mrs Bevan, Freddie’s brought his girlfriend home!” and he dragged Emma to the window. His little bro came to have a look. We could tell when Freddie was coming back out coz you could hear him beeping!

They took us to the phone and I phoned my mum. Freddie went off to do his papers but said he’d be back in about 15 mins if we were still there. Ralph waited with is. My mum came and asked me who Ralph was so I had to tell her who same with us and what we did. It was embarrassing but she didn’t seem to mind.

I wanna do that again sometime.

BYE!

P.S. Freddie’s birthday is November 8^th. And Dougie said that, other than school shoes, he was looking for some Kappa pants. I’ve got some of them. [SO MUCH IN COMMON! Shame it was all sportswear.]