I love markets and we regularly visit Bury market which is a corker. It`s a pic n mix of stalls and there`s an indoor market hall and a traditional outdoor market plus a separate meat and fish hall. I can spend all day looking around them all.
I can`t abide shopping malls such as the Trafford Centre in Manchester plus others besides. They all have the same shops, very few bargains, get overly busy especially at the weekend and never have anything to catch my eye.
I buy 99% of my clothing online because at least online I can see straight away if my size is in stock, no trawling through rails only to discover my size isn`t there or is there but in the wrong colour or leg length.
Plus I`m a lover of voucher codes and now know which websites regularly offer them or which new websites give a discount for signing up to their news letters or some such. Every penny helps.
I dislike crowded areas, queues at tills, idiot shoppers who block aisles or create problems, lack of facilities such as toilets and if you do find one its often dirty or out of order and trying to look through island displays where stacks of jumpers or whatever have been simply dumped by customers who`ve turned the whole thing upside down and it now resembles a jumble sale.
I`ve had my toes run over by people pulling their wheelie shopping trolley behind them, my ankles rapped by the same, and people on mobility scooters trying to get through narrow aisles and scattering people like billiard balls when they get near the till. I`ve had my ribs poked by metal basket corners which have been slung over someone`s arm and the basket sticks out at an angle ready to get you when you pass. One of my granddaughters when she was little was poked in the eye by someone carelessly handling a wire basket, they`re lethal !
Plus on a serious note, come this time of year especially, there are gangs out deliberately pick pocketing, bag dipping, distracting people at cash machines, following people and watching them. Mr V picked up a chap yesterday from a nearby retail park and he`d withdrawn £260 from a cash machine, put it into his wallet and somehow, and he didn`t have a clue how, the wallet and money was lifted from his person. Another elderly lady related to a friend of mine was in a charity shop of all places and had her bag dipped and her purse taken.
I`d rather stay at home cuddled up to the cat and the dog, with a nice cuppa tea and buy anything I need online.