Saturday, November 08, 2008

Shop til you drop

I hate shopping. Have I mentioned that before? I mean the kind of shopping where you don't really know what you want, you wander aimlessly around the mall or the city centre streets looking for something that you're not sure exists, battling against crowds and elbows and noise and smells.

That kind of shopping, I hate.

I can just about cope with short bursts as long as I know what I'm going for, where I'm going for it, and we can get in and out and done in as short a time as possible. And sometimes, like today, I realise it's unavoidable.

Because I'm off to Augsburg for a two-day business seminar (plus a day's travelling) on Tuesday and the dress code is business casual in the day time and smart casual in the evening and that gives me a big problem. For months I've been working at home most days, slobbing around in Ts and jogging bottoms. Even on the days I've been hauling myself into the office, I've been wearing jeans. Not a good image for Augsburg; something had to be done.

Then, a miracle happened. We arrived at the Trafford Centre just as it was opening up, went straight to BhS, found two pairs of large-waisted chinos and two decent shirts for not much more than fifty quid, found a few extra Christmas presents for people we'd been struggling with, picked up Christmas cards for close friends and family, had a rather nice panini and coffee while listening to the Sally Army band blowing their way brassily through some Christmas favourites and were home by one o'clock! Result!

If shopping was always this quick/painless/successful I wouldn't have a problem with it.

And really, the fact that we somehow managed to also pick up almost a hundred quid's worth of movie DVDs and music had nothing to do with my feelings of satisfaction.

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