Shopping With My Mum

I love going out shopping with my Mum. It's not the act of shopping, that we both enjoy. It's not even the bit where we have lunch together in one of our favourite restaurants or cafes. For us, even when we don't actually go out with the intention of buying anything, but just go out to window shop the best part of the trip is the spending of time together.

PippaD and her Mum having fun out shopping

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't always this way. I'm sure that my Mum could have quite willingly murdered me when I was growing up, just like I could have quite cheerfully have done the same to her. Obviously, things have changed now, as apart from the odd moments where homicide seems the only answer, we get along famously.


I find it hilarious that almost everyone that knows me knows how much I wind my Mum up when we are out shopping and that they encourage me to do it, even my Mums friends who should know better! I once received a phone call from my Bishop during a shopping trip, and asked if he could hold for a moment whilst I left a shop to get better reception. It was at this point that he asked if I was playing hide and seek with my Mum at that moment. I told him that I wasn't, but I did actually have to extract myself from a rather good hiding spot just before I answered the phone to him.. it wasn't a lie the game hadn't started when he rang!

Of course, my games aren't always my version of hide and seek (and I have been known to drag the poor shop floor workers into my game too, but generally they are willing to play along with us). It might be that I pick up increasingly ridiculous items and ask if she wants to buy them. I may have even played a game once or twenty times where I put different things in her basket or trolley to see if she'll buy it or realise that I've been trying it on. It's about fifty-fifty if she realises I've done this or not.

Then, of course, there are the pictures I take of (and sometimes for) my Mum. Mainly they are just for my own amusement but if I find that special images that cracks me up I forward them to my Sister and a couple of my Aunts. You know, normal things, pictures of my Mum looking at weird stuff, pictures of weird stuff we've seen, pictures of clouds that look like things, pictures of things which neither of us wouldn't mind buying in the future and things which I know will crack Flyfour up if I send them to him via WhatsApp.

Butterflies have changed a lot since I was young, these look like foam dinosaurs to me!

No matter what time we set off in the morning, at the end of the day, when it's time for me to drop my Mum back home we are almost always running late and have to speed through our goodbyes. I then race off home to meet Dan Jon Jr at the end of School, or to drop Top Ender off at one club or pick her up from another.

This normally means by the time I get back home one of us phones the other to finish off a conversation that we were having or one that we forgot to have, or to say that we forgot to swap over one of our multi-buys or that I've left something at hers, or she has left something in my car.

Simple things, simple pleasures, simple delights.