Okay.Okay I said no more shopping but today I relented. We went off to Meadowhall or Meadowhell as some call it. A large shopping centre on outskirts of Sheffield near Rotherham. There was a bit of self interest however as I had ordered a bit of camera gear from Jessops online and elected to pick it up instore. This seems a popular option for a lot of UK stores even with their sales, shop online reserve it and pick it up instore. So I had ordered a2x teleconvertor and a Carbon Fibre Jessops tripod. Both retail for Seventy-nine pounds so was relatively happy with my purchases. The shopping centre was absolutely manic. I parked in a field across from the centre and trudged my way into the centre after dropping the others at the door. The line up at ATM's had to be seen to be believed. I was astounded at the line up for the Pandora store...not sure if it was returns or new purchases I later spotted a second store on another level and it too had a line up. The food court was a no go zone and we ended up eating in M&S's instore cafe. I sensibly gave Su a M&S voucher for Christmas...even though we were not doing Christmas..Right! Christine and Adam went off to shop on their own. I made a couple of trips to the car to drop off parcels as Shopping trolleys are not a feature of this shopping centre. Surprisingly Su has come to the realisation that there is nothing for her to buy, in fact she says she is over shopping in the UK. The stores are far too hot, the clothes in many cases are still too dear after the sale, are for winter and the large crowds put you off wanting to pick through items even less to try something on. Some stores started their sale with doors opening at 5 am and were open until 10 pm. Some stores shelves already looked well picked over at 11.30 when we were there. Boots had Perfume etc at 50% and the shelves were bare when I cruised through on my way to the car to drop off packages. One thing that stumps me is they drive on the left side of the road however why is it in a shopping centres people walk like browns cows and when they do. they walk on the right side, hence pushing a wheel chair with Su's mum in is even more difficult. Must admit I have noticed this trend in Australia also..what happened to keep left? Su commented that many of the stores gave the appearance of looking like charity shops. I think some of this was to do with the shear volume of people and stores staff not being able to tidy up. I was astounded at how many times the electronic stock alarms went off at the entrances of stores but no one seem to take notice or care. So we survived the post Christmas sales and tomorrow we are off to Paris...not sure if I will have Internet whilst in Paris...
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| Line up outside Pandora |
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