Four and a half G...? Two and a half hours ...?

Ok .. It's almost over .. I am a year older and wiser today ... Never take your child shoe shopping on a weekend.

Decided to get Zoo a new pair of shoes so we got to Brent Cross very early, in time for the doors opening and then spent the next hour walking past shop windows full of assistants clearing up and sorting stock before letting any customers in. Cream spent a couple of minutes looking at some poor girl hoovering a shop display and then with a grin on his face, knocked on the glass and mouthed "You've missed a spot!"

Waited around outside Clarks, no other parents hanging around (although Russell & Bromley already had a queue leading outside the building by this point) so we decided to take a walk around and come back in 5 minutes when it opened. Big mistake ... came back to a hoard of parents and kids and when we took our ticket we realised that we had at least 13 parents in front of us in the queue and all of them seemed to have a least three kids each! I overheard the manager telling a staff member off ... "don't tell them half an hour ... no .. even if it is going to be an hour .. tell them 15 mins!" After a long (45 mins) and unproductive wait ("no, they're not in stock, no we can't order them, yes we get stock every day, no we don't know what stock"), we decided to go to Russell & Bromley instead.

Cream approached the manageress there and she passed him ticket number 00. I asked how long we were likely to wait seeing as they were on number 87! Only about 10 or 15 minutes she replied ... Yeah right I'm thinking ... But low and behold she was right ... "88" .. the staff assistant calls, no answer ... "89, 90, 91, 92" she yells in quick succession ... a mother raises her arm and the staff assistant totters off to attend to a screaming toddler. Next assistant calls "93", no answer, "94, 95, 96, 97" ... someone yells from a far corner.

At this point a tired looking father staggers into the shop and looks bemused at the computerised number staring back at him. "But I'm 81" ... Cream who has almost lost the will to live at this stage whispers "If he gets served before we do, I am gonna scream!"

"98, 99" ... I jump up with my 00 before anyone can respond to the first two numbers and within 15 minutes of entering the shop Zoo is the proud owner of a new pair of shoes and I feel like I have aged another 15 years!