So what is it about women and shopping? When I need to buy something, I know what I want and where to get it. I go to that shop buy whatever it is and go home. I can't believe there is a man out there who would decide to spend a day shopping. With Christine it's a passion.


It's the old 'Retail Therapy' routine. Why does anyone feels better after wandering around lots of shops spending money? Can't see it myself.
First it's a matter of "Is it to be an out of town shopping center?" or "Lots of smaller shops in town? I remember a day I dropped Christine at the MK Shopping Experience in Milton Keynes at 10.00 in the morning. When I collected her at 5.00 that afternoon she had only been in the John Lewis store. Nowhere else, just John Lewis and wanted to know if we could come back the next day!

It's only a 150 mile drive, so we did.


But Christine really prefers the smaller individual shops selling more individual items.
Shopping in Beverley or Hull is an 'I' thing, Christine will do that by herself but when she wants a day's shopping further afield, it suddenly becomes a 'We' thing and the problem is that Christine has some favourite shops that aren't very close to where we live and it is not unknown to drive a couple of hours to get to one of them.


Some of these favourites are found by accident. On a 5 mile circular walk from Clappersgate in the Lake District, we stopped for a drink at Skelwith Bridge and discovered Touchstone Galleries, a shop in which Christine has subsequently spent many hours and pounds. But I can live with this one, good food and wine overlooking the river. That'll do for me while Christine shops. Then there is Serendipity at Leyburn - more hours, more pounds. Good scones and coffee. But probably the top of her list is Bergerac in Bergen, North Holland. Now that is too far to go on a day trip but Christine and Alex discovered it when Alex lived in Holland. We have many things in our house that I have had to struggle home with.


I can put up with these shops it's the clothes shops that gets me.

Christine will go into Hobbs in York and I ask what she's looking for, "Nothing" she says "just looking". Why? Why are we here if we don't want anything. We 'Just look' in Laura Ashley. We 'just look' in Marks and Spencer. "What for?" I ask. "Just getting ideas" says Christine. She has a three foot high pile of magazines and catalogues at home including the M&S one but we have to look round the shop.
But it gets worse, when we buy something we can only carry it in the right shopping bag. We can carry a 'Fired Earth' carrier, obviously a 'Bergerac' carrier is top notch as is 'Harrods' but buy something from 'Woolworths' and that bag has to go inside another.

Of course if your purchase comes in a paper carrier with string handles and with a bit of ribbon holding it together then that's OK. No matter that if it rains the whole thing will disintegrate. We have been known to take the right carriers with us just in case we only buy from the wrong shops. Can't be seen with a Woolworths carrier.




But what really gets me is that we can be out shopping, buy what we want, but then we still carry on 'just looking' at the same thing in other shops. Why? We can go home now. But that wouldn't be as much fun!