I’ve ‘got lucky’ tonight – in normal circumstances when I’m away, I get to spend my evenings in drab hotel rooms with a book and a Marks and Sparks sarnie only for company.

Tonight though, it’s been different.

At the footie last week, I arranged to meet up with Sarah for drinks and a meal so that’s what we did. I even had a stroke of luck on the way because I managed to grab myself half an hour of ‘shopping time’, not that the experience was something I’d like to repeat often but I did get myself a really fab new swimming cozzy. Black, ‘fortified’ and polka dot – just MY thing! However, the experience itself left a lot to be desired. I know I hanker on for the ‘good old days’ a lot and perhaps that’s just a problem of age but really and truly I don’t think that what was once the glorious Arding And Hobbs of Clapham Junction has been done any favours in the reincarnation that is Debenhams.

I picked up the cozzy and asked to try it on. I got told that I had to go to a different floor to do so. When I arrived at the changing room area it was a nasty mess of tangled clothes heaped onto mobile hanging rails and it looked like a 1970s Oxfam shop to be truthful. There was a surly young man ‘helping’ people into the cubicles, of which there were only three. There was a queue. I queued for a good ten minutes to spend precisely one minute in the changing room making sure the cozzy fitted. When I eventually got into a cubicle, the man thrust three more outfits into my hand because you have to take in four things whether or not you have any interest in them at all. I perused the laminated instructions that were described as ‘non-negotiables’ on the wall for the staff…..they had a list of things like ‘you must smile, you must make eye contact, you must chat to the customers’. At the end of the list, the final point was ‘make sure you keep your eye on our stock’ – so much for customers there then…..oh and by the way – the young man negotiated his way out of the non-negotiables and didn’t as far as I could see, actually do any of them.

Once I’d established that I was going to buy the cozzy, I went out of the cubicle and handed him back the three things he’d insisted I take in. He said ‘oh, don’t you want any of them’ as though he’d not shoved them into my hand a minute earlier to make sure I kept the four rule! Next he said, you go round there and pay. I went round the corner, found a till in front of me, put the cozzy down, got out my purse and waited. Five minutes later, he popped his head round the corner and said ‘oh, not there, over on the other side of the shop’.

I gathered up my stuff and went to the other till, where a group of teenage girls were sitting around holding up outfits to themselves and chatting. I assumed they were customers from the way they were behaving, not so! One said, from her sitting position, ten or twelve feet away from the till ‘can I help’. Yes, I responded, I want to buy this. Oh, she said, Natalie (or Jane or Karen or whoever) will do it, she’s got nothing better to do.

What a dreadful experience. I wonder is rudeness a requirement in retail now? No, I know it’s not, most of the shops I go in, I’m treated with at least some modicum of politeness.

Anyway, I got my cozzie, met Sarah, walked up the road to a restaurant in an old building and saw this on the wall. I wonder what delight ‘Medova Fresh’ was? Cream? Butter? Something else entirely? Who knows, I certainly don’t and a quick ‘google’ didn’t reveal anything that looked likely. Maybe I’ll never find out.

Twas dead good to see Sarah though and to have chance to catch up on non-footie gossip.

Bad Al was last year's subject.