Loads of books, and a punch to the head

Duncan and I took his brother and sister to summer scheme. He asked to look in the charity shop and being in no hurry, I parked the car and off we went. Well talk about hitting pay dirt. Someone must have cleared their book shelves and dropped the boxes off very recently. There were a good few children's book spilling out so I asked if I could dig through the lot and the man working there, a good guy as I've learned from previous visits, said to work away. So we plonked ourselves on the floor and shifted through the boxes. Duncan made a little pile of those he was interested in and I made a huge pile of my own. Then ecstasy, we found 3 Thomas the Tank Buzz books, Duncan's absolute favourites. I hauled the booty to the pay desk and told the man I'd probably need to nip over to the ATM as I didn't think the £10 note in my purse would cover it. He asked me for a fiver. No way, I said, take a tenner for all those. Nah, said he, give me £5 and tell all your friends to come over and look through our stuff. So off you go to to your local Action Cancer shop. They are the best.

Here's what I bought:

1. 2 Mister Men books
2. 3 Thomas the Tank Buzz books
3. 2 children's videos
4. Winnie the Pooh Ladybird book
5. Alexandre Dumas- The Three Musketeers
6. The Usborne Internet Linked Science Encyclopedia (beautiful colour hardback)
7. James Joyce - 3 novel hardback
8. Robert Graves- Greek Myths
9. Anthony Burgess- A Clockwork Orange
10. Teach Yourself Irish
11. Marcel Proust -Remembrance of Things Past
12. Anita Shreve- The Pilot's Wife
13. Ian Rankin - A Question of Blood (I love me some Rebus.)
14. Minette Walters- Fox Evil
15. Kazuo Ishiguro- The Unconsoled
16. The Oxford Library of English Poetry Vols II and III
17. Francosi Mauriac - The Knot of Vampires
18. Leo Tolstoy- Anna Karenina
19. Sylvia Plath- The Bell Jar
    

How fantastic is that? I don't think I've read any of these before.

Duncan was so grateful, telling the man "thank you very much" and on we went to the pet shop to buy a new run for the guinea pigs. We passed the indoor play centre and he asked to go in. Again, feeling very spontaneous, I consented. We were the first people there. For a while after it was just Duncan and a younger boy, then a large group of 6-10 year old boys arrived. I had to redirect Duncan from the area reserved for 1-3 year olds, as he liked the slide there best of all. He was a bit frightened of going up to the first level of the frame for children his age. But when the gang of children arrived he felt a bit braver and followed them up the ladder and had fun in that area. I stuck by him all the time, moving about to keep him in sight. When his play time was almost over, I witnessed him and another boy bump each other going up some steps. They each tried to pushed past the other a bit then I watched as the other boy raised his fist and punched Duncan hard on the forehead. I called out to him to quit, and asked Duncan to come to me. He was very upset. He fell into my arms, tears streaming. He shook and shouted and bit at my shoulders saying over and over he was sad, angry and a bad and horrible boy. I just held him and sympathised and agreed that he was angry and felt bad. We moved to the chairs and he had a drink of water and sat on my lap for a while crying. One of the staff checked he was OK, she'd seen the whole thing. One of the woman accompanying the group of boys, one of which was little master hit a lot, came over to say sorry too. A while later she brought the boy with her and he said sorry. Duncan just said sorry too. As we left the other staff member asked after Duncan. They had been very kind, oh yeah, they'd given me a free cup of tea earlier when I hadn't enough change to buy Duncan's bottle of water and my tea. In the end, Duncan had enjoyed himself prior to the incident and I think he will want to go back again some time.

And the guinea pigs love their new run, they're popping (and pooping) all around while Pippi looks on greedily/curiously.