Saturday Afternoon at the Mall

This afternoon, we took a trip to our local mall, just like hundreds of other people, including one of our neighbours I might add, who I spotted there and who like ourselves was probably checking out what I imagine will be the last weekend of the January sales.

We didn't really get a chance to go sale shopping proper over the holidays (I just visited a couple of local regional stores that we don't get here in London), so we  thought we'd catch the tail end of the sales, expecting it not to be quite so busy.

We definitely got that wrong, the mall was pretty full and there were lots of people out spending money and quite a bit of pushing and shoving in some of the stores, which I hate.  I never normally have to experience this, as I only usually ever go to the mall midweek mornings when it is quiet.  I find myself less and less tolerant of this kind of thing as I get older, so it wasn't a wholly enjoyable experience.

Another reason we went to the mall today, was that it is Little Bird's birthday next week and I'd promised to buy her a couple of items of clothing, which I wanted her to try on before I bought them. She also had some vouchers she'd been given as Christmas presents and wanted to spend some of them, which she duly did.

The shopping was broken up by tea and a scone in the John Lewis cafe, which helped us relax after the busyness of some of the shops and regain our equilibrium.  I can definitely appreciate the appeal of online shopping, the more real actual going to the shops I do, particularly at this time of year.
I've had some very poor customer service in the last week, even just in the course of my weekly food shop and was beginning to think that all shops were becoming no go areas. John Lewis did kind of restore my faith the whole shopping thing, but even there there were a couple of things I found a bit irritating. Like who leaves their rubbish in the plastic shopping baskets? - Extremely lazy people, I can only assume. I had to search through 3 baskets to find an empty one to put my shopping into and then I had to take some rubbish I was prepared to touch out of it, to empty it. (There were some items of rubbish I just wasn't going to touch i.e. a used latex glove!)

Anyway, I managed to find a new Kingsize duvet for our bed in the John Lewis' sale which was pleasing as it was on my list of needs, and it wasn't one I'd seen online. Other than that, I just bought a few basic inexpensive new plates and dishes that we also needed, so I didn't go too mad.

I did try on a beautiful Phase Eight skirt, that I'd been eyeing on their website for weeks in the sale. I was possibly going to add it to my capsule wardrobe, but I found it didn't quite suit me, so my fantasy of having it hanging in my wardrobe was dashed by a strong dose of reality. Probably not a bad thing when I considered the cost of it. At least now I know that it was never meant to be and can put the yearning to rest.

Hopefully, we won't feel compelled to do this again for a good while. I the more sensible of you had a much more relaxing Saturday afternoon.