Michelles London Life

Shopping makes me happy.

It really does make me happy - it's like a chemical effect or something.

At the moment my office is in a street off Oxford Street in London - the most famous shopping area here. This is bad.

December and January have been the worst months i've had since i left home. Everyone told me that Londoners get the winter blues during this time, buuuut i didn't really believe it would happen to me.

After i got back from Egypt i had to face the cold and the dark again, along with work and the freakin tube (work had moved to it's new location while i was away). And my very first Christmas without my family. Also, a lot of my friends had left the country for this time of year (they knew! - they knew better than to stay in London and watch each other contemplate suicide - why didn't i believe them?)

Plus i had to face up to the fact that i had waaaaay over spent on the Egypt trip, and hadn't really accounted for Christmas and New Years. After the regular expenses like rent and travel card, almost my entire December pay cheque went towards paying off my credit card and covering the holiday season. And to be honest covering all the Christmas parties during the two weeks before the holiday!. All the remaining money i used to buy very very basic groceries. Chicken breasts, frozen vegies, soup, bread, cheese - that's it for a month. No alcohol, no socialising (unless it was free activities), and NO shopping! On Oxford street! During the SALES!!!

It was torture. Not being able to go shopping made everything a whole lot worse. Because, even though i was down, a litlle bit of shopping every now and again would have given me something to look forward to, and it would have cheered me up! So it was bad.

I didn't get paid again until the end of January when all the salas are over. I have learned a very valuable lesson, and will never make this mistake again. Next year i will hoard money for the sales, and camp out on Oxford Street waiting for the stores to open. Or i'll just go on holiday. And i will be very very happy.

Because, in the best year of my life, January - has been the most boring and depressing month i can remember.

Thank god it's pay day tomorrow!!! And all the missing friends have started arriving back too! Yay!

Sooo to celebrate - i took the credit card out to Oxford Street at lunch time today. I spent two glorious hours shopping, and came back £100 lighter - but with a great big smile on my face. I'm still buzzing off it a couple hours later :-)

There's got to be some kind of scientific evidence to prove that shopping increases a womans seratonin levels...

I've been told that a study was done on the effects of shopping on men, and that it causes similar stress reactions to what you'd find in a fighter pilot or riot police.

Hahaha! You poor buggers. You don't know what you're missing out on.

Big smiles! I wonder how long this will last me :-)

posted by ... @ 7:33 AM