Bluewater Shopping Centre

If you are short of cash, stuck at work or saving every penny for that brand new hamster cage you've always wanted, look away now.

This is Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent, the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe! This is a great place for a day excursion if you're in London for a week or longer. It's quite easily accessible by public transport, but note that car parking spaces fill up very quickly indeed.

Judging from the first picture, it looks really weird that people are actually willing to do some shady manoeuvrings of the car parking sort just to look at a giant greenhouse. But trust me, the inside is worth getting up early for! Here I am, leaning back and basking in the anticipation of bargains to be had.

And here I am, leaning back again (it was an early start, okay) on the map. There are also paper copies available free, so you can have one of these as a souvenir if you've come to the shopping centre not intending to spend any money on shopping (see possible hamster cage dilemma above).

This diagram also works as a hipster-chic illustration of Pythagoras' theorem.

For those who have been dragged along on a shopping trip (dad/taxi-driver multitaskers, this one's for you), the architecture of Bluewater itself is well worth a look if you just can't stand another debate on whether this skirt would look better at the party than that one. The huge reliefs behind me represent different trades, and I have no clue who the winged guy is standing on a column, but I doubt it's incubating eggs.

If you're missing a football match to ferry your shopping enthusiasts here, come to the dome area. The dome looks just like the closing roof of a football stadium. Tune into sports commentary on your phone, look straight up and it's just like you're at Wembley. Sort of.

I'm not getting into that lift, if the advert is anything to go by. No, sir. Jon Snow and Ygritte should be north of the wall, not down in Kent.

Ah. A more friendly image. This horse is doing the traditional equestrian skirt-wearing dance, perfected in 1876 by the German innovator Dr Hans Schmidt. Not really. I just made that up.

If you were one of those who actually listened to my advice on pretending you were at a football match instead, the skull in the background is you after a shopping trip.

There are restaurants in Bluewater; so it is perfectly possible that keen shoppers could spend an entire day here.

You have been warned.

You must be dying to know, 'What did Elf Dryadalis, the Trendsetter whom I emulate as far as I can, buy?'. You weren't? Oh.

I'LL TELL YOU ANYWAY.

I got page markers from Paperchase at £3.00 to wallpaper my room with, a free leaflet from Boots advising me on different foundation shades (looking this good isn't easy, you know), and my favourite buy of the day, a new pet dragon from McDonald's. It even came with a food supply of chips and chicken nuggets, but when I tried to feed her, she wasn't interested. So I ate them all myself. Yum.

See you soon,

Elf Dryadalis