I am the shopping Queen

Yesterday, by dint of some freaky paradigm shift, I found myself alone in Dubai Mall for two hours. Yes, you read that right: Alone. In Dubai Mall. For two hours.

No pushchair. No toddler. No DD. No DH.

Just me, my credit cards and I.

This is the type of thing about which I dream. Clothes shopping, handbag shopping, cosmetics updating, a Pappa Roti bun and a coffee, possibly even a pedicure and a cheeky foot massage. The world, it was my oyster.

Dubai Mall is home both to "Fashion Avenue" (no prizes for guessing what that is) and 1,001 luxury handbag shops.

Normal shopping trips for me, you see, aren’t about pleasure. Usually I power-walk my way from chore to chore, DD’s feet hardly touching the ground as I drag her through the mall ticking off whatever errands we’re there to run before DS needs food / a nap / entertainment / to get out of the pushchair and fall headlong down the escalator /to vomit in someone else’s Gucci tote.

And, usually, as I whip past shop windows, I see tantalising glimpses of the stacks of treasure within. Dresses, jewellery, handbags and shoes that would change my life, if only I had time to run in and buy them. Cosmetics that would make me look 25 again. Bath products that would send me to nirvana every night.

“I’ll come back one day without the children to look at that,” I promise myself optimistically and, of course, I never do.

So, for the first time in about 100 years, there I was yesterday, in almost the largest mall in the world, with two hours to spend. So what did I do?

I know you want to know…so…

… I panic-walked about a bit, wondering what to do with my freedom, then I bought some things. A new high-back booster car seat for DS. And some pink, Barbie swimming goggles and some colourful nylon hair extensions for DD.

Unforgivable.