Coronavirus diary, Saturday 25 April

Bob and mother Gwen shopping, Clapham Junction, 1940

Ever since I was a boy I have liked shopping. I would happily go with my mother to Clapham Junction's bustling market, the main shopping street and, best of all, to Arding & Hobbs the grand (in those days) apartment store near the country's busiest railway junction. And now, in my nineties, I still feel the thrill. I am still a shopaholic - a friend calls it retail therapy. 

At least I did so until just a month ago when I last drove my electric scooter out of my room in Sunrise, down in the lift and out, on the way to the Tesco store near where we lived for 26 years. The day before lockdown, I had rediscovered my Mecca - the shop-crowded Albany Road with the the fruit stall and the discount shop in the church on the corner. I could have filled a trolley but had to make do with a bagful of goodies between my feet on the scooter. I spend time online scouring Amazon, the world's biggest market, looking forward to my overpacked parcels  but it isn't the same. No fun, no thrill. So, when our stores finally open I'll shop till I drop!

Postscript: the wartime photo at the start of this post is historic. Mum and I were shopping at Arding & Hobbs when we were hustled out from the shop and into a public shelter next door when the first of the London blitz raids began. We could see the flames from the docks area. 

Clapham Junction as Bob remembers it in the late 1930s