Mall Rats

Today was that day. The day when she was all grown up enough to spend a couple of hours meandering round the shops with her pal, without a parent in tow, although Eve's Dad was not that far away and did the drop off and pick up.

So what does an 11 year old girl buy on her first self-directed worship in the church of consumerism that is Union Square? Well, mascara apparently ( but not too expensive she said, as she didn't want to waste her money) lip balm, American candy and.....strawberry hand sanitiser??????? A cuddle not so long ago revealed some interesting lingering fragrances. "Oh yes" she confessed, "we also went into a perfume shop and sprayed everything". "and Star Bucks, I had a frappacino but I got muddled ordering it because you usually do the ordering mum so I spoke gobbledegook and then managed to get the right words out then did a walk of embarrassment back to my seat"

Takes me back to going into town every Saturday with my school pals when I was that age, trying on luminous clothes in C&A, getting a cassette or record from woollies, visiting the bead machine in Holburn street, buying a mini lego set much to my friends bemusement (they were far more sophisticated and had far more developed boy radar than I) and then making the lego set in the wimpy across from the music hall, where I'd order my cheese burger....until the day when I too was 11 years old and bit into the burger, to not taste any cheese, so I opened up the burger bun, to reveal the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. And there and then I turned vegetarian. ( I'd watched Meat is Murder on channel 4 the night before too, so it was all written in the stars) And I've been the worlds most unhealthiest vegetarian for over three decades since.

Think I'll phone up my school pals and ask if they want to hang out at the shops next Saturday.