Shopping in Hereford

There are very few things that I need to go into Hereford for any more, but one of them is ink for my printer, which I get from Cartridge World, the recycling place.
Yesterday I had a couple of other things I wanted to get as well, so I went in on the afternoon bus.
When I paint my toy rifle to make it more Steampunk, I want to add a bit of verdigris on the copper, so I went into Games Workshop to look at the paints. The chap in charge there was lovely! He was very enthusiastic, and showed me exactly how to achieve the look I wanted, and which paints to use to do it. He even showed me a model he'd painted, so I could see how it should look when it was finished.

In the centre of town, the Old House is surrounded by hoardings, which looks worrying, but it appears to be due to maintenance work taking place on the plaster, so hopefully it will re-open again.

I'd heard that The Entertainer was one of the toy shops which had promised to stop segregating 'boys toys' (in the blue aisle) and 'girls toys' (in the pink aisle), so I went in to check. The blue and pink backgrounds are still there, but now they are labelled 'action and adventure' and 'imagination and' - something, and toy boxes with pictures of girls on the lid are right next to boxes with pictures of boys on the lid, although in the science section the toys clearly aimed at girls are for making perfume and soap and cosmetics, and the other toys are all about creating gooey gloop, and erupting volcanoes. There are even 'girly' nerf guns, but at least that's an acknowledgement that girls might like to play with them too!

Down towards Edgar Street, I got confused by the layout of the road and pavements, and had to take my life in my hands to cross the very busy road. I hadn't realised just how awful the ring road is for pedestrians - and just how far you have to walk to find a safe crossing point or underpass. I was going down there to have a look at the stumps of the trees that were cut down (at 7am, on a Sunday morning) despite great local opposition, by Acorn Environmental for the County Council. I understand they had to bring the firm in from Birmingham - presumably at some cost to the local taxpayers.

And finally I stopped at Wetherspoons to wait for my bus home, and had a very pleasant pint of Exe Valley's Autumn Glory, and a half of Red Beacons while I read the comic book I'd picked up from Waterstones - Winter Soldier: Black Widow Hunt (which was the only one I found that I liked the look of which had any female characters in it at all!). So now I know a bit more about Bucky Barnes, sidekick of Captain America, and the Black Widow's numerous ex-boyfriends.