I love clothes; I loathe clothes shops. Like many of my contemporaries, I have embraced the world of online secondhand shopping. And yet, I also want to live in a place where people walk, shop, gather and eat in their city centre. I want the high street to remain as healthy and as unhomogenised as possible. I know that online shopping is killing off traditional shopping areas and apparently, even online shoppers buying new are having a fairly miserable time; so-called serial returners will buy – and then post back – £6.6bn worth of unwanted online purchases this year. More than a fifth of non-food purchases made online in the UK are now returned to the retailer, and there’s usually a spike in returns around Christmas.

And so, with my debit card weighing lightly in my pocket, I decided to head into town and have a go at some bricks-and-mortar shopping. I would stand in those changing rooms, smell those diffusers and, this being half term, queue up behind some hormonal teenagers dressed as Gwen Stefani 25 years ago.

The last new piece of clothing I bought was a six-pack of M&S full briefs as I pulled into the second trimester of my current pregnancy and realised I no longer wanted to be cleaved in two by my own underwear. But while I am covered for undergarments, I had completely run out of jeans that fit me. So I headed to Uniqlo and was met with........

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