I keep losing my husband. In shops. Careless, I know. Actually I should be thankful that he enjoys shopping.

I should be even more thankful that sometimes he’s the one who suggests we should go shopping.

I lost him in Banbury recently. Just as I was sifting through the rails of baby onesies he disappeared and I found him at the other end of the shop touching up some goose down pillows.

For good reason you understand, we needed a replacement and he is fussy about what he puts his weary head on.

He wandered off in a Witney supermarket too and I was left to take care of our weekly menu. I was just contemplating Thursday’s supper when there was the extremely loud crash of bottles hitting the supermarket floor one after the other several aisles away...

I just knew the perpetrator was Simon. I was right.

He had picked up a box of of beer when the end of the cardboard box swung open and released every little green glass receptacle from its interior, smashing and crashing to the ground. It was a glass massacre. It was also very nearly closing time and the staff didn’t look too happy as the area was cordoned off and an army of them set to, some with brushes, others with mops.

It is, though, extremely rare that my husband causes such havoc. He likes to point out that it’s normally always me. I have never seen him quite so profusely sorry, I have also never seen him quite so puce with embaressment.

I also mislaid him in a shop on Cornmarket last weekend. As I was trying to locate him he was in the lift. While he was travelling between the shop floors, I was paying for a couple of items on the ground floor.

I slipped my payment card into the machine and as I tapped my pin number into the keypad the assistant walked away. At that moment the till loaded with notes popped open.

There I was surrounded by a shop full of people on a busy Saturday afternoon, a till stacked with cash and an absent shop assistant. I felt a sense of responsibility so arms outstretched and knees bent I found myself protecting the stash by hugging the till drawer, my full wing span wrapped around the takings until the assistant returned. She did, fairly imminently.

I explained my actions, found my husband and left. Just like that... not even a thank you. There are many advantages to accompanied shopping, particularly when you have a buggy and a small child. Most clothes changing rooms aren’t spacious enough to accommodate a pram, ours is particularly big and cumbersome. I squeezed the buggy into a limited space to try on a few items of clothes.

While in a state of undress Betsy had managed to grab the curtain across the changing room only to expose my scantily clad body to most of the customers on the shop floor… oh, and that was after I had set off the security alarm on the way in. I’m giving shops a miss for a while...