Half term is upon us, and the weather until today has actually rather good which is odd and mildly unsettling, as it is usually horrendous.
This has meant that I’ve been sorting through my clothes looking for some kind of summer-suitable wardrobe.
Boob sweat is bad enough, let’s not compound the misery with sleeves.
Turns out, I’ve lost a bit of weight (yay for being poorly eh?) and the clothes that actually fit me right now are between 6 and 10 years old.
It’s kind of nice; it’s a bit like a big shopping spree where you don’t have to pay for stuff and you already liked it enough to buy it once already at some point.
However, it would be nice to buy myself a few new bits, I thought.
Even as a teenager I never really enjoyed shopping as a leisure activity, and I’m hardly fashion-aware, but I decided it would be nice to have some clothes that fit and weren’t a decade old. I earn my own money, I’m thirty fucking five for God’s sake, I’m allowed to treat myself to the odd new skirt here or there.
So when it happened that we were in a town 14 miles away at a very loose end due to a cancelled appointment and with parking already paid for, I thought I’d take the opportunity to pop into a few shops.
First off we went to Primark, which had nothing.
Not a thing. It never really does; not for a 35 year old anyway.
For kids, it’s a freaking goldmine of flamingos, unicorns, Paw Patrol and Spiderman. So of course, although the kids have more clothes than they could possibly ever need (although they do insist on growing a lot) I spent £50 kitting them out for summer – which goes quite far in Primark.
For myself, I bought a bag, to carry all their shit in.
Somewhat deflated, I thought we’d just pop into H&M.
I’d seen a few skirts I liked and I reasoned that we had time, I could try them on now.
They had a few, I picked them up and to the changing rooms we headed.
Now, here’s my tried-and-tested advice for trying on clothes with children.
DON’T.
DO NOT GO CLOTHES SHOPPING WITH CHILDREN.
They will be bored, and whiny, they will point and laugh at your tummy and your hairy bits. It’s what kids do.
I know all this… But as they get older sometimes I think ‘maybe….’ and I really shouldn’t.
However at that point in time, I felt my options were limited.
Before you ask, I’ve tried the online thing.
I’m so crap at online shopping.
I bought that Zara dress because I fell in love with it and then had to return it to the store because it was huge, meanwhile the other dress (in the very same size) which I had bought to bump it up to free shipping was too small.
I can’t even trust myself to send things back properly; I have about 4 cheap BooHoo dresses I bought in a panic for an event which were, unsurprisingly, cheap, and have thus never been worn.
I don’t live near enough any decent shops to buy then try and return, so unless I manage a child-free shop, they’re coming in with me.
And so they did.
Once all three of us were safely inside the not-really-big-enough-for-one-person changing room and I had impressed upon them the importance of leaving the damn curtain alone through the medium of harshly-whispered threats and bribes, I started the process of getting changed.
They both decided that they were going to join in, of course. Sitting still and being patient aren’t things that come naturally to my children at all.
My youngest wanted to try on his new Primarni wardrobe, which involved a lot of ripping off of labels, and then attempting to hold conversations with, and lick his reflections.
My biggest preferred to try on the clothes I had picked up for me, and then serenaded us with a song of her own invention whilst wearing a pleated skirt around her neck, using a hanger as a microphone and looking admiringly at herself in the mirror, me “whispering” loud SHHHHHHHs and saying Quite Loudly Actually that perhaps the other people in the changing rooms didn’t need to hear it all.
BUT I did end up buying two skirts and a dress so it honestly wasn’t the worst changing room experience of my life.
