Om Saturday evening I bit the bullet and mounted operation summer shop. I had already been well informed by good sources that most of the large high street retailers had already dropped their prices so I decided against waiting for the sales.
Now, I have admit I don’t like shopping at the best of times. I shop when I need to and having stepped out of the office at the end of another busy week, my stress levels were already high. However, I got off to a good start. First stop was in a large store which belongs to the retail group owned by one of Spain’s, if not the world’s, biggest retail tycoons and it really did not take long to find a few items which I liked.
However, I then went on the hunt for the changing rooms in the men’s department - closed. Everyone had to use the ones on the second floor where I stumbled across a queue of some 30 people. Had I been on my own I would have aborted the mission immediately, but despite breaking out into a cold sweat, I was ordered to stick it out.
I did, but needless to stay both trousers were slightly too small so off my companion had to trek to source larger sizes. My changing room was slowly becoming a sauna, but the trousers came, fit and out, phew. Then I had to wait behind the same number of people to pay. Deep breath and shop two, same all over again. Two-and-a-half hours later, mission completed. If there were tourists here I have no idea how the shops would have coped.