Love the convenience of the café. John Lewis has always provided the best and delivery services and…read moreinstallation for all the appliances. This particular visit was for curtains. One star off because while there are many sizes and styles listed online, the stores usually only carry one or two of each variety leading you to have to purchase them online and have arranged for either pick up in store, or home delivery. So it is best to use the store to inspect the individual items first before purchasing, but you might end up going online to order them anyway. Prices were excellent as always and delivery was free and of course John Lewis has a wonderfully large parking lot. That is also free of charge. For online pick up or Customer Service head around to the parking behind the store and enter from the rear entrance.

Despite what my husband may think I'm not a big fan of shopping and spending time in mammoth…read moreshopping centres and hot, stuffy department stores where the exit is nowhere to be seen (think the Father Ted lingerie department episode) puts the fear of God into me. However, needs must and sometimes shopping can't be avoided so if this is the case I want somewhere that will make it as easy as possible. I like this branch of John Lewis as it's easily accessible by road (just off the M60 and Handforth bypass) with plenty of parking, making it super easy to pull up and head straight in. It's pretty big, spread over 3 floors, but still doesn't feel like it swallows you up and everything is very easy to find. It's also very neat and tidy which is pretty important to me as I hate it when a shop is in total disarray (think the hellhole that is Primark) as it just makes the whole shopping experience more stressful than it should be. I've always found the staff to be approachable and friendly and will happily dispense advice on the best toaster or coffee machine for your buck, if you so desire. John Lewis is definitely one of the more premium department stores (not quite Harvey Nics but definitely not Debenhams) so the products and prices obviously mirror this but if you are after gifts or items that are of a higher quality then it's a brilliant option. Another major plus point for JL is that if you sign up for their loyalty card online they send you vouchers for free coffee and cake every month - this sweetens the shopping experience no end!

Ryman in the Manchester Arndale is A-OK, specialising in stationary, they have a great deal of…read moreofficey items (pens, lever arch files, printers, USB sticks), some of their prices are a little higher than average but this is eased slightly by their Student discount. The selection is pretty good, the selection of printers is smaller but with Currys PC World, nearby, no longer stocking them in-store, it is one of the few bricks and mortar stores nearby with physical stock. I find some of the staff to be a little rude, and sometimes I just wish I'd have ordered on Amazon at a cheaper price, that being said the store is easier on the eye than other stationery stores which I find to be often a little messy, and the selection is good, so if you do need stationery in a hurry, this store isn't too bad and the location is convenient being on the upper floor of the Manchester Arndale, next to the old Specsavers unit, which was taken over by Foot Locker. 3*

Isn't it funny how so many people claim to love stationery but hardly anyone can spell it? Even…read moreotherwise flawless spellers seem to confuse stationery and stationary. I was always taught the spelling by the rule, 'e' is for envelope. Alongside envelopes expect to find diaries, calendars, folders, paper, printer cartridges, pens, highlighters, Tippex, Post It notes, blank CDs and pretty much every other item of stationery you'd need in the office or at university. They don't sell larger objects such as office furniture and printers, as it is really only a tiny little shop.

Debenhams are quite a large chain of department stores in the UK, on the more affordable range…read morecompared to the likes of Harvey Nichols, and Selfridges who are more high-end, and the latter actually have one of the anchor stores in the Traffor Centre it is located in, which as I recall are three department stores being John Lewis, Selfridges and Debenhams. As mentioned, being an anchor store for the intu Trafford Centre, this branch of Debenhams is quite large, with a fragrance hall as well as a selection of both male and female clothing over the two floors. I'd also like to comment, as this is such a large store in such a busy location, I'm surprised it has only received 15 reviews, most of which being in 2009 and the most recent being in 2011, I'm not going to say all the things that have happened since then, including Gary Lineker being forced to present Match Of The Day in his underpants, following Leicester City's Premier League win, previously dubbed impossible. Moving on to my original review, this is quite a nice store, it is quite large and does look quite modern, but as you go into it, it sadly feels less modern, albeit it does have quite a nice, cool staircase towards the end of the store. Sadly, most of the clothes here just seemed poor quality, and honestly look dreadful, which proves it isn't the most fashionable place to buy clothes, unless you like to buy things which look like curtains and towels. The staff here didn't seem too friendly, they just seemed average. Overall, this store is okay, it is nothing more than that but I sadly feel it hasn't done enough to earn three stars, with one of the only positives being the size and location of the store.

I don't mind Debenhams to be honest. It's a good department store. Whenever I come here it's always…read morethe men's wear department that I visit. You'll be heading down some escalators when you come in to find it. There's loads of famous fashion names on offer, like Levi, Rip Curl and many others. It's always worth a visit as well as you sometimes find things cheaper here than in the labels' own shops. One thing I would say is that it's really difficult to find the escalator to get back up out of the basement floor! I ended up wondering around for five minutes trying to find the bloody thing!

What I do not understand is how a shop so small can stock some of the best bags around. This is one…read moreof the most popular yet smallest shops in Uppermill and mostly it is women who are raiding the shelves! Every woman loves a handbag and here you will not be disappointed at all with whats on offer. Of course they have Radley like every bag shop should and Kipling and Fiorelli. It really is a great shop and I think every one should go here!

This shop is the BEST. I cannot walk past this gorgeous shop, I have to go in & check the latest…read morestyles-yes, they have everything a girl could want or need.

MAJORLY dissapointed with this store…read more found every single member of staff rude, abusive, acting like the dont want to be there and not helpful in the slightest i wish i could say this was only once or twice but its every time we go in there. we had to buy all of our baby stuff from here as its nearest to our house and whilst attempting to open a store card we had to retuen several times, i was heavily pregnant and no chair was ever offered while we stood around waiting for the incompetant staff to try and work out what was wrong with their computer!! even the managers didnt know it turns out they had been trained wrongly/badly never have i ever recieved a smile or a friendly hello off anyone working their and when i tried to return a faulty item they didnt want to give me the time of day and sent me away and when i asked a lady who was stood around leaning on a cot and chatting to another member of staff for a demonstration for a pram i got a discuisted look as if i had interrupted her socialising and she grumpily showed me how to use it there are always large groups of staff stood talking to each other on the shop floor and never ever anough people on the tills. one if ure lucky!!!!

Toys R Us in Stockport is on the Peel Centre. It is an enormous store selling every toy and game…read moreyou can imagine. It is a great place just to go and browse, I could spend hours in there trying all the toys and testing the computer games! The staff are really friendly and willing to help. They are not the cheapest place for toys on the high street, but if you want to get everything for your children's Christmas in one place, it is ideal. They also have a baby section selling cots and bedding, and a bike section.

Key cutting, shoe re-heeling, engraving etc!! I like the smell of polish this place exuberates…read morewhich I guess is a little odd but oh well. I come here to get engravings on stuff for gifts, like key rings, belt buckles, even jewellery. The prices are extremely affordable.

Pens are big business, everybody uses them. The pen was first invented well, a very long time ago…read more Its name stems from the latin pinna which means feather. Pens are generally long thin items with rounded ends that apply ink to a surface for writing. The earliest pens were made in India out of bird's feathers. The pen shop sells pens (any more obvious?), it makes a good location to seek out a variety of potential gifts for that someone special. Staff know their stuff when it comes to pens and the pen shop does a big variety from the day to day pen to the ones you sign million pound cheques with. Also does a big range of pen accessories if you don't know what these are let me tell you, paper, diaries, notebooks, pads.............

When you've got a writer in your friend collective, you often forget that these creative types…read moreactually prefer pen and pad to computers and white screen. You forget that they get giddy over pen barrels and nibs and fluidity and feel and weight and all that geeky stuff. But it's also refreshing to see pens still bringing in the buck. For the technology technology technology people of our 21st century world, the thought of a pen shop might prove a waste of good space for a city centre, in favour of a shiny new Mac shop, yet it's the refusal to budge that endears me to the Pen Shop. Walking in to the Pen Shop, you could be forgiven for nipping in and blindly expecting to pay a maximum of about £30-40 for a pen. Yeah that really is not going to happen, priding themselves on retailers of excellently crafted writing apparatus, don't expect to pick up three pens for a fiver. I was mooching for a fountain pen as my ideal gift, and the prices start at around the £40 mark and can go upwards of the £1000 price point. Best thing to do, walk in, state your reasons for purchase, price point, and style of pen if you know it, let the sales team pull their products and choose your gift to make your pen lover happy. If you're flush on the cash front, then Mont Blanc pens are gorgeous, if a pen is a pen is a pen to you, then try the Parker or Cross pens. But remember folks, if it's for a gift, it's not you that needs to be impressed. Don't take a netbook lover in with you who will utter that they could buy a notebook for the price of a pen...doesn't go down too well...

This is the discount version of the famous Manchester store back in the city centre. The kind of…read moreshop I don't really contemplate entering (for I am not a well paid footballer) but also they don't really sell the types of clothes I usually wear (I do smart, under duress, but a couple of times a year). However I never say never and now again something will catch my eye and my brains tells me That would look great on you on holiday. Usually it's right, but then I never end up wearing it again following that one time in a restaurant, near a beach, in somewhere hot (a white linen shirt, worn once stands testament to that). Still, there are some remarkable discounts to be had here. You can literally 'save' hundreds of pounds such are the mark downs on many items. Usually however, the items at such discounted prices have a reason for being so: they tend to be the wrong end of garish and flamboyant and 12 sizes too large. But persevere and you just might grab an absolute gem for a very good price. I think the Women's department (I say department, but it's just a large open plan one floor shop) is more represented than the Men's but there's not much in them. Look out for a good price on shoes too.