WHY I'M FEELING DISTINCTLY SHOP-SOILED

Tricky cove, shopping. Sounds easy enough but sometimes life ain’t that simple.

We were in Debenhams last week when Mrs N spotted a wooden lavatory seat just the right shade, so she claimed, to replace our existing seat which was showing signs of its age, so she claimed. It was an exorbitant £35, but I agreed – as if I had much choice – that we should go ahead and buy it.

I will admit it looked good in situ. But some time later she noticed a fault on the underside of the lid… a sliver of laminated wood appeared to have popped up out of sync.

Could we live with it? We agonised for ages, but No, Mrs N decided, we couldn’t. We should expect better for £35. So we decided to trek back into town on Saturday.

I was ready to have a good old go at some – any – hapless shop assistant, what with the cost of the Park and Ride, the waste of our time, lugging a heavy old loo seat around.

But the loo seat lady couldn’t do enough for us. Only one snag – the only other similar seat they had in stock wasn’t nearly as nice. Wrong shade, obvious laminate joint right at the front. Then the nice lady suggested we could have the first one for £15. Sounded great to me, but Mrs N agonised again for what seemed like half a lifetime before agreeing to the bargain.

While we were in Debenhams, she suggested, there was a nice coat she had seen the other day; perhaps we could put the saved £20 towards that. Clever ploy, girl, but when we got there the dress had been half-shoplifted! The belt had disappeared, and three of the decorative buttons were missing.

Oh well. Just one more item to get in town, in WH Smith, and then we could go home, thank God. We were just going through the door when an electronic voice told us that an item was going outside with the security tag still attached. The mystery shoplifter – three suspects whizzed by us at the same time – was soon swallowed up in the throng outside.

Mrs N and I held our joint breath. We expected to be pounced on at any moment. But no – nothing. Nobody charged to the door, nobody charged after the shoplifter, nobody charged after us.

Shopping, eh? Who needs it?