Yes, of course it’s Alex’s fault! How silly of me. He didn’t do a snagging list – because he was dead

When everything is going wrong even shopping can be painful. Charlotte Cripps loses it with a shop assistant in Notting Hill – over a pair of red shoes

Illustration by Amara May

When Alex died, I couldn’t believe it when I heard people moaning about things like their broken washing machines or smashing their iPhones. It all seemed so utterly trivial especially when dealing with the love of your life – who has killed himself. Life is a blur and you look back and wonder how you got through it – it’s a bit like when you first have a baby.

But now, five years later, I’m worrying about the same things as everybody else. The internet is down. I can’t make a cup of tea because the fuse has gone in the kettle, and the garden is overgrown because the lawnmower is broken. I feel like my world is crumbling before me, and I am alone, with no help.

It was so much easier when Alex was alive. He ran a design and build company and could get things sorted. He wasn’t the man to roll up his sleeves – he was the creative and financial brains behind it, but he had a workforce at the snap of his fingers.

Nowadays something that should be simple feels impossible. I ordered a flat pack wooden fridge freezer for Lola but it was so hard to put together that I had to call in a builder.

I had Eddie stored in my favourites – he was Alex’s old builder – and he came over super fast. Lucky really, as it meant I could show him the damp patches on the kitchen walls caused by excessive condensation after they built the extension. But when I mentioned it to Eddie, he blamed Alex for telling him to put in a steel beam, not a wooden one, which quite frankly, Alex wouldn’t have had a clue about.

How very convenient, doesn’t he know you never speak ill of the dead? It was the same story with Alex’s electrician who pointed the finger at Alex when I asked why there were so many light switches and shaving points not even connected to cables?

Yes, of course it is Alex’s fault! How silly of me. He didn’t do a snagging list – because he was dead.

Now I am like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Everywhere I look there’s a big sign that says no entry. The trouble is that I have nowhere to vent my frustrations. My complaints fall on deaf ears. There is no customer complaints line I can call from beyond the grave. Alex is not here to get them to fix it for free. The guarantee is out of date – “hello” – “hello” – “hello”. I may as well be talking to myself.

But time is a great healer and now I am happily distracted by mundane things like damp proofing, or lack of, finding a new car and shopping. Handy really, as Lola’s wealthy godfather has just sent his PA over with £1,010 in cash for her birthday. Rather than stick it in a savings account with a high interest rate, I decide to go on a shopping spree for some clothes.

Not for me, of course, despite the fact I really need a new winter coat. While I’m out and about, I can’t help but pop into the local French kids clothes shop Bonton on Westbourne Grove, where an average kids sweatshirt with a cat face on it, is about £70, which I always translate as “that could be seven sweatshirts from H&M”.

Once they’ve been washed a hundred times, covered in tomato sauce and paint from nursery school, they all end up looking the same anyway. But it’s nice to buy them the odd special garment – maybe I could get Lola a pretty dress?

I walk in with both children, Lola 3, and Liberty 1, and I tie the dog outside to a nearby tree. The shop assistants have seen us before and dread us coming in. Lola makes a beeline for the stocking filler-type toys in one corner, which is usually all we walk out with, after turning the shop upside down.

Did I really want the dress? It didn’t matter now, I had to buy it. I was on a mission. I didn’t know what mission. But I was in the middle of some kind of behaviour I felt totally powerless over

I find a beautiful dress – it’s £94 (quite cheap for Notting Hill) – but I hesitate. “Does she really need it?” The dog starts barking uncontrollably outside and Lola has moved all the expensive see-through umbrellas to make a pretend bonfire in the middle of the shop. I notice the irritation of the shop assistant and I decide to leave the dress and get out of there as quickly as possible.

There’s a woman ahead of me at the till who has basically bought the entire winter collection, but I edge in and ask the shop assistant to put the dress on hold for me.

“Ok, but last time you asked us to hold something for you, you never came back,” she says seriously, as if she is telling me off. I can’t believe what I am hearing? I start to feel like I’m Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when she goes shopping on Beverly Hills Rodeo Drive and gets dirty looks. Am I some kind of fraud in a fairytale rich world? And I say: “But I did come back!”

“Well, I don’t remember you coming back,” she said. My mind is racing as I try to remember back to what item I had placed on hold? Oh yes, it was that pair of £10 plastic red shoes for Lola to wear on the beach. Probably the cheapest item in the shop – but very useful.

“I did buy those red shoes!” I said angrily. She looked at me as if she didn’t believe me. Then I lost it. I told her that her accusations were unacceptable and she had no right to speak to me like that, when the manager appeared. I was in floods of tears. The assistant was sent downstairs and the manager apologised profusely, after I explained what happened. The woman who was buying tons of clothes was ushered out of the shop with all her bags.

“Madame,” she said in a very strong French accent. “Even if you didn’t come back for them, which I know you did, you are perfectly within your right to put things on hold. I will be speaking to the assistant.”

“Sorry, I’m just tired, I haven’t slept in weeks,” I said. It all came flooding out as if I was in a therapy session and somebody had triggered a grief button.

I put the frilly dress on hold and fled with the kids. But on the way home resentment and pride started building up in me like a tsunami until I found myself wanting to prove myself right. “I will show her!” I thought. I had genuinely lost the plot with no sleep. Maybe the whole Notting Hill bubble was getting to me? Was I starting to feel less than – not good enough – an outsider – insecure?

I drove like the clappers and screeched to a halt outside my flat. I got the kids out, ran in and dropped the kids with the nanny, fetched my envelope with the cash, and the plastic red shoes and leapt back into the car. To the dread of the assistant I was back within five minutes flat and I swooped in like a scene from an FBI arrest on TV.

I thought I saw the assistant run down the stairs and the manager looked at me sympathetically. “Where is that assistant?” I demanded. “Here are the red shoes,” I said: “How dare she tell me I didn’t buy them!”

“Non, non, non it is not necessary, “ said the French manager holding a dusty pink cashmere cardigan from their baby range. “Non, you didn’t need to do that,” she said. “Non, non, non.” I got out the envelope packed full of cash. “How much is the dress?” “£96 Madame,” she said gently. I pulled out several £20 notes and gave her the money. Did I really want the dress? It didn’t matter now, I had to buy it. I was on a mission. I didn’t know what mission. But I was in the middle of some kind of behaviour I felt totally powerless over.

Had I gone mad? On my way out the manager gave me a giant bottle of kids eau de cologne as compensation for the altercation, which when I looked online was £90. I now use it as room spray when the dog farts as its citrus and lemon stench is overpowering enough to kill the smell, which otherwise leaks into the communal corridor.

I suppose the lesson is not to take on Notting Hill when you are tired. Or to only shop in normal shops. At the other end of the extreme, I have to remember, I’m doing drive-bys to the local charity shop with all my sister and her husband’s hand-me-downs that I’m obliged to feel grateful for. I don’t buy my kids many clothes but when I do they are really nice.

Like the Gap baby jacket I found with Bambis and a woodland scene or the pink bunny T-shirt with long ears on the front from H&M.

I love walking out of high street stores with bags full of clothes: an entire winter wardrobe for two kids for less than £100. I guess that is how the average yummy mummy feels when leaving Bonton, but the bill is more likely to be £2,000.