There used to be a time when I couldn't get enough of it: I thought about it day and night. I was either planning to do it, had just done it or was in the middle of doing it. But then my baby came along and that was the end of my love for shopping.

It used to be so relaxing immersing myself in a bit of retail therapy, but that was when I had the energy to run round all the different shops checking which had the lowest prices and biggest bargains.

Nowadays I feel it might be better to take advantage of the catalogues that the nice ladies in the city centre are always trying to thrust upon me. I used to avoid them by diving into the nearest shore while professing a great passion for hoofing it but now I am not so sure.

Of course, I totally blame the baby magazines in this respect. They do a wonderful job preparing you for after the birth and the inevitability of a droopy bottom (and other important bits of the body), zilch energy and hundreds of other ailments, but they don't tell the most important thing so necessary for modern day women, indeed vital for existence - not being able to go shopping ever again. Not in the immediate future anyway. Well, not until the baby has established some kind of routine. Which in my case means when he has left home sometime in the next 20 years.

If you are the mother of a small child you will know that there is so much equipment and supplies that you need to carry with you at all times, including endless nappies (my baby always had the runs before he could walk) especially when we went anywhere important.

And we always had to take boiled, cooled water in case of dehydration, and food, though he was never, ever hungry. Only when there was no food available at all would he scream for it.

And despite what top engineers of baby equipment claim to be up to, it is still murder trying to negotiate a folded pram onto a bus. It always decides to spring open at the most inopportune moment, usually when you are trying to pay the fare. No, it is not very fair, especially when there are masses of people behind you trying to get on too. Not exactly the right way to win friends and influence people unfortunately.

The whole experience can put you off shopping altogether. And where are you supposed to go anyway? The supermarket is all right until the baby gets to toddler age. Now my little one refuses to sit in the allocated part of the trolley and tramples over the groceries while holding up a French stick and saying very loudly to any passing toddler in a frock: "I hate that girl. I'm gonna shoot her!". Faint.

Sunday markets are not much better. I did think it may be fun to go shopping somewhere where you are not going to bump into people that you know. Instead it is the place to see lots of oversized children in too-small buggies and where you can buy a jumper with holes in it for a pound. It would be a bargain were it not for the fact that it is useless.

Maybe next time I should take a leaf out of a home shopping book - and stay at home.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.