A nostalgic shopping trip down memory lane does wonders for the high street, and my step count

When I first arrived in London in 1982 I was waitressing in a Covent Garden wine bar, bizarrely named The Crusting Pipe. This was where my now husband came in for a ‘crusty cob’

I found myself shopping in Covent Garden this week. As in real life, walking-the-streets shopping, popping in here and out of there and trying on items of clothing in proper cubicles, and you know what? It was great.

I’ve got very lazy about real-life shopping, even though I live bang slap on a big red bus route that takes me directly into the heart of London’s West End. I usually find it easier to click a mouse around a screen and wait for the thud of a parcel, or more inevitably, the discovery of the “Sorry we missed you note”. For me “live shopping” seems to have dwindled to a weekly supermarket shop where the old man accompanies me because he likes using the DIY barcoder (aka the zapper) due to the fact it makes him feel like he’s in Star Wars, even though he is merely pricing up cod loins in breadcrumbs.

A combination of laziness, financial belt-tightening and realising that I already have enough stuff anyway, has drastically cut down my “shopping for the sake of it” habit, but once in a blue moon it’s really nice to get out there and physically shop.