Back to school - pens, pencils and pizza!

At this moment, I am enjoying a cup of tea and congratulating myself on a job well done. For today I took my 11 year old daughter into town to stock up on the necessary ‘Back to School’ paraphernalia and neither of us ended up in tears.

For the past 7 years, I have dreaded these annual events as they inevitably end up with me walking for hours, laden with bags and a desperate desire for a cup of coffee; my daughter no longer speaking to me as we battle to find the perfect pencil sharpener.

Today, however, was different. Somehow we managed to find all the right shops offering a great range of items needed for the new term ahead, and, as your community publisher, I am very happy to share these little gems with you!

Our first stop was Ricara, which stocks uniform and sports ware for all of the Chichester high schools.  The staff were really helpful and very happy to spend time with us to ensure that we had everything we needed. They were very knowledgeable about the specific requirements of each school and so quickly provided us with everything on our list including the PE kit.

With that massive hurdle over, we concentrated on stationery next and were delighted to find that Paperchase has opened a store in North Street. This is a wonderland of everything paper and ink, with delicious ranges of Japanese inspired cartoon characters such as Happy Noodle. Although this is one of the more expensive stationery shops, we were able to buy a few special bits and pieces to make the return to school a little more exciting. WH Smith provided everything else and had a huge variety of pencil cases and rucksacks at very reasonable prices (currently there is a 20% discount on all back to school items here).

For shoes, we went to Russell and Bromley, as they offer a proper children’s fitting service with a variety of widths and half sizes. The staff are lovely and make an effort to find a style and fit that your child (and you) will be happy with. The only slight problem with this store is that the children’s section is down a spiral staircase and there is no lift for buggies. A more buggy friendly option is Clark’s who also offer a full fitting service and excellent quality shoes.

Marks and Spencer and NEXT were both great for the uniform basics such as trousers, skirts, coats and socks and can be relied upon for quality and value.

At this point we had to stop for refuelling and popped into ZIZI’s Italian restaurant for pizza and light, crispy calamari before continuing onto Tesco’s for our last few items.

Here they stock a wonderful array of lunch boxes and flasks in all the popular character ranges such as Hello Kitty and Ben 10 and this was out last stop before we were shopped out. Don’t forget that at the moment, any club card vouchers that you may have can be swapped for double their value when they are used for the back to school range which is a great deal.

So that was that – almost entirely stress free (almost) and a rather successful day if I do say so myself.  I hope that you find some of this helpful and that you will share your shopping trip experiences with us here at Chichesterpeople. Good Luck! Verity.