Whenever middle class acquaintances talk of the sad sight of hordes of people swarming towards shopping centres at the weekend, to hand over fistfuls of cash in the joyless pursuit of some elusive emotional and material fulfilment i always exhale gently and murmur ‘i KNOW…’ But truthfully?! It is a FUCKING LOVELY way to spend a day and i ache with sorrow for anyone who doesn’t know that.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear. Apparently. I woke up about 4 hours later, at 9am, but whatever, still pretty impressive given id got in from gigging at 1, then got drunk watching CSI with Mum and Dad til 2. Mum marched into my bedroom like a soldier having a breakdown (i.e. In Jammies). She looked angry yet excited, i soon realised why. Marks and Spencer were having a sale, she hadn’t known about it, she felt ashamed and foolish, yet now she was armed with this information she was steeled to act upon it. Could i be up and ready within 5 minutes? If so, let’s go.

Mum and I always like the M+S sale – i don;t know why but it’s always been a place we could have fun, spend time together and celebrate the similar parts of our personality. We have a lot of differences but at heart we love clothes, we’ve both experienced years of being too poor to have any choice in our clothes, and now we have the money to actually buy clothes we like, we embrace this gladly. We also believe firmly that shopping isn’t shopping unless there’s violence, which is why we prefer sales, they’re like Extreme Shopping. The first time i shoved a stranger in the pursuit of a £3 silk dress was in an M+S sale and i felt like a young medieval boy finally tall enough to push his father’s plough down their field. Or something. Rite of passage, just think of one, apply it to this, don’t make me do all the work.

We sauntered out, i bought sunglasses for a pound, a big baggy pink silk dress for £7 that should look shit but doesn’t (the perfect sale purchase, like a man you spot who will be incredibly attractive once you ‘encourage’ him to shave his horrible beard off, and then women will fall at his feet, but it will be too late for he will be your boyfriend by then. HA! That’s like the romantic equivalent of a bargain). We rummaged, ate sandwiches, sat in a cafe, laughed at things, just had a bloody lovely time.

We also brought Dad, out of the kindness of our hearts. We dutifully sat outside the men’s changing room for an hour while he tried on an endless collection of identical jeans and we all debated the finer points of each. There’s an hour I’m never getting back. The joy of M+S is the feeling that you’re somehow stepping back into a simpler time, one where people are polite and never surprising. Example: In the women’s changing rooms a woman stepped out of her changing room and addressed the room of strangers stretching in unfamiliar clothes. ‘Too short?’ she asked, we all looked at her ankle hems and chorused ‘mmm, a bit.’ “Teetering on an ankle-flapper there” I offered and Mum gave me a look that said ‘Why do you always have to be different?’ One woman offered unsolicited but kindly advice on a shirt i was considering, while another asked me to zip up her dress. Lovely community feeling. For my next life crisis i shall seek refuge and practical advice in my nearest M+S changing room.

At the men’s changing room the atmosphere was more akin to getting your jabs before heading off to war. No man ventured in without moral support from a wife, mother or daughter. They didn’t make eye-contact with each other at all, it was like they were patrons of a brothel specialising in something particularly shameful. One man strutted in alone, looking proud, though Mum pointed out that he was trying on a shirt exactly like the one he was already wearing. Baby steps. One man asked his girlfriend (nice girl but extremely orange) if his trouser’s weren’t a bit tight. “No’. she chirped, ‘it’s nice to have them a bit tight there, show the shape of your bottom.” I couldn’t see him but i heard a heavy silence descend over the changing room as all his fellow changers absorbed this unwelcome declaration and he and his shapely buttocks crept back to his cubicle, presumably with all his cheeks blushing pink.

However i mocked his fellow changers too soon, as Dad hardly covered himself in glory. He came out to do a twirl in another pair of jeans, testing their comfort by lunging on each leg, while the shop assistants stared at him, clearly thinking ‘he better buy them now, i don’t want to refold lunge-residue.’

“Go for a walk” Mum suggested, as she has time-immemorial whenever anyone in the family has tried on shoes/clothes/jewellery/perfume. He trotted off. Time passed. Then passed some more, as it does. “Oh nuts.” She said “I didn’t tell him where to stop.” Genuinely true – without specific instructions of when to return, Dad had just marched off like a lemming until he reached the edge of the shop, when he confusedly richocheted back. Sniggers cropped up around us but luckily our shame was upstage by a small boy dragging himself out of a cubicle in a huge man’s suit, for larks i thought, but no. Five auntie/mum-type women (I assume they knew him and weren’t just responding blindly to the call of biology) descended on him and began rolling up his trailing sleeves and trouser legs until his little hands and feet appeared like the suit was giving birth to his limbs. They insisted the suit would look lovely and also that he mustn’t shake out the folds, so he had to glide serenely back to his cubicle without picking up his feet, like a precious performance artist. I didn’t want to hurt his tender young feelings by giggling so i had to examine a 6-pack of socks very closely.