Interesting February

I am on a roll here people.

Last month saw me kick my Not Really Resolution of doing something interesting each month in to action and I met up with special internet friends in real life.

So when February came along I thought I'd just carry on with the theme and meet another special internet friend.

Enter Janet who writes over at Words That Can Only Be Your Own we 'met' last May during Blog Every Day May and I guess that's why it's fun to join in with those kind of blog memes that travel around, they bring you into contact with all kinds of people. Also if you use Twitter you can get your hashtag on and find lots of people that way.

I immediately decided I liked Janet as she does the same kind of blogging as I like to think I do - a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little of the other. And then she wrote a post about deciding not to monetise her blog and I think at that point I fell a little bit in love. (Even if saying how much I liked it on Twitter got me into a world of pain from people who got pretty defensive about the whole PR thing.)

So how pleased was I when I discovered that Janet not long doesn't live too far away from me, in Leicester, she also lives in a city that is the only one accessible by public transport from the backwater that I currently live in.

So I hopped on a bus for a journey that took over an hour each way - but didn't really feel like and only cost £6 return and gives you views like this out of the window...

...and made my way to Leicester.

Upon arriving early into Leicester I made a beeline into my most favourite of places. That of the crappy bus station cafe. I love these places. Their food and drink is relatively cheap and the cups of tea always taste good and they are terribly imaginatively named...

When Janet found me I was deeply ensconced in my book and nurturing the dregs of my brew. And that's where there's another cool thing about Janet I can tell you about - she reads the Game of Thrones books too! Hello my name is conversation starter. You can't go wrong with a person that likes these books.

I had no agenda for the day other than to just get out and about and see something different. As someone who lives in a place where the only high street shop is a New Look the size of most people's living rooms I would have been ecstatic just to see shops, let alone go in them.

Janet took me to some brilliant places that I never would have come across in a million years had I gone to Leicester by myself. We vintaged ourselves up a treat in Dolly Mix Vintage where I got myself a brilliant crocheted waistcoat for a 70s party that I'm heading to this weekend and I stopped to admire the impressive collection of (and very reasonably priced) vintage suitcases. There was a part of me that very nearly snapped one up but common sense prevailed and I remembered what happened the last time I fell in love with a vintage bag and ended up with something that is very beautiful but is heavier than trying to carry a World's Strongest Man contender around over your arm.

Janet patiently waited whilst I ransacked haberdashery shops and clothes shops alike, as a year of never going shopping came bursting out all in one go. And she even took me to the best bar/pub ever, The Orange Tree, which I will be visiting again in order to neck their entire cocktail menu.

I only intended on being in Leicester a couple of hours, but when I realised that I'd been there for four I counted that as a job well done. It was only on my way back to the bus station that I realised I had basically talked for the whole four hours and Janet had probably gone to lie down in a darkened room with a flannel over her eyes.

I can only say sorry - I don't get out much and the combination of being out + meeting someone new + discovering a new place was too much for my senses to deal with as I bulldozed my way around Janet's fair city like rampaging bulldozer type animal.

But I count it as a job well done. I've discovered a new city which I can actually get to and I have discovered a new special internet friend, who I have more than likely terrified and will never step foot out of her front door again.