h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Monday 11 November
In the office, but having lunch with my parents, and it's my anniversary.

I'm wearing one of my absolute best charity shop finds - a grey and black Sportsmax dress bout for £8.99. That's dear in charity shop terms, but these are over £200 new. It has a black leotard style top, a grey wool kilt skirt, and black voile bands to tie behind or in front at the waist. In total size confsuion, it was on a 8 hanger (though hangers are very unreliable), and the label says UK6 or US4.

Against that utiliatrian black and grey I have a brightly coloured scarf - 60euro, Diane Von Furstenberg, outlet mall in Val d'Europe, Paris, bought during our Disney holiday in June. It has a base colour of off-white, with splashes of mint green, tangerine, black and grey, and dots of silver.

As it's my anniversary I'm wearing a grey mother-of-pearl locket given to me by my husband, and my troll bead bracelet. This is a modern charm bracelet, and R enjoys buying new charms to mark special occasions - in fact some of the charms were given as part of his wedding vows.

Lunch is a get-together as my youngest sister, a lecturer at Melbourne Uni, is over for a few weeks directing a play in Belfast, and my middle sister is able to join us as well, so it will be a rare family reunion.

[Amy P]

Congratulations - did you really go to Gretna Green in November?

Not only that - they made News At Ten, too!

Bea, I am overawed by this journal, not only because of your total devotion to your wardrobe, but also because you're so tiny!

I'd dearly love to stalk you through these charity shops for bargains. It's very rare that I can see anything worth buying at all, but maybe this is to do with the rural area I live in here.

I am on the edge of my chair waiting for each new day's contribution

Aw thanks, Lanza and the rest of you putting up with my fashionista indulgences! I've lost a good bit of weight recently, so I may be inclined to gloat over the dress sizes .

Yes, we were married in Gretna Green on 11.11.11, in the Titanic tartan kilt, and yes we made the "And finally..." amusing section at the end of the news.

Lunch today was in Cafe Renoir, the venue for our rather-delayed wedding celebrations in January this year. And my mother (bless her) had photos of the event with her, including me posing with the plate of the half-a-cabbage-studded-with-cocktail-sausages-and-a-marshmallow centrepiece. We showed these to one of the waitresses, who said "Oh aye, I was there that night!"

Well, c'mon...that cabbage creation wasn't easily forgotten, after all!

Wednesday 12 November
Office day, and the auditors are in!

There used to be a little dress shop round the corner on Newtownards Road, opposite McDonalds. I'm not sure where they got their stock, whether it was from other shops that were closing down, I don't think they took in donations, and it wasn't for charity. But they seemed to have an eclectic range of quality clothes, and I picked up a few bits and bobs there. They closed down suddenly a few months ago, and the place is now a Turkish barbers. But my outfit today contains a few of the items I got from there, though they weren't bought together.

Dress: InWear, size 12. Black with a dotty pattern in silver grey and charcoal. It has a puffball skirt (very retro!), a fitted waist, with 2 thin ties to wind around. It's Scottish dance class tonight, so I'll probably keep this frock on, as it flows nicely when in motion.

Mad cardi: Lizard grey jersey with leg-of-mutton sleeves (that's a slight puffiness at the upper arm, tapering to slim at the wrist), and the buttons at the front have huge fabric roses down either side. This was from a Dutch company that I hadn't heard of before, and it's quite unusual looking.

A scarf in longwise stripes of grey, navy, and turquoise. This proved invaluable on our last cruise, where the December temperatures in the Canaries were much colder and windier than I expected!

Opaque grey tights in black suede flat boots (it's cold out there)

And to make the whole thing look a bit more business-like, a strand of grey Mallorca perals. These were bought on our first ever cruise last June. We'd found this lovely little shop on our arrival day in Palma, but I didn't want to buy anything until we were on our way home. So we spent most of our last day in that beautiful city scurrying up and down the tiny streets trying to relocate that first shop.....

If your taking Lanza to the second-hand shops, I wanna come too!

[Amy P]

Just realised I declared yesterday as Wednesday - but today it is, and it's my day off!

13 November.

Advanced Scottish dance class this morning (2nd Wed of the month). Regular dance classes are held in the evenings, and in fact in the greater Belfast area there's a class on each night of the week. Now, these are open to all, and new members are actively --hounded--, I mean, encouraged to join. But with lots of beginners it does slow the pace of a class down. So last year we instigated an monthly advanced class where more experienced dancers can try out more complicated dances, and now that I've moved to a 4 day week I'm really thrilled that I can go to these!

I'm wearing a black 3/4 sleeve T shirt from the M&S outlet store (£2.50). This is its first outing, and I must cut out those itchy scratchy labels. As a swirly skirt I have a wraparound cotton one from Skye Batiks, a little shop in the island's capital, Portree. In fact, the bag I carry most of my Scottish dance stuff in is a canvas one from this very emproium. It's in a bright jade green with black and white pattern. These vivid colours are not my usual palette (the skirt is technically my husband's, and the shop assistant hooted with delight at selling a skirt to a bloke). So I'm finding it difficult to find a cardigan, jacket or scarf to match.

Itchy scratchy labels seems to be making a come back... there were dozens in the last jeans but one I bought, which I had to unstich from the jeans, to avoid cutting the jeans themselves

I agree about those terrible labels. I quite like labels in underwear that are actually printed on the inside of the fabric.

My other bugbear is when you buy a lightweight sweater or something, and the washing instruction is a mini-booklet of individual world languages and fabric specs. You have to cut them off, because they show through, and then by the time it comes to washing, I've forgotten what they said. I shrank my favourite Monsoon angora sweater recently by handwashing it. It must have been dry clean only. (It's gone to the charity shop now)

[Amy P]

Bag dropped off at charity shop today too. And then a few dresses that had been reduced to a tenner each fell into my shopping trolley at tesco......

How do things from places like Tesco work out, sizing wise?

I had such serious problems this year, when buying new (male) jeans... 32" does not mean 32", and 34" doesn't mean 34", and it varied from shop to shop.. so I got 32" ones, as loose as overly loose 34", tried on 34" looser than old 36", and others, that were too tight, so tighter than a 32" I then had the same trubble, when I needed new (male) underwear.. the upshot of which was, more than £14 on (cheap), male knickers I threw out, without wearing and then had to spend more, on others, the exact* same* size, which were clearly, not* the same size at all (and hence did* fit)
I'm still baffled, soemtimes by the lack of consistancy with labels, especially in knickers... sometimes at the back, inside, sometimes at the left, inside, sometimes at the right... even more confusing with my female knickers which seem even less consistant on both size, and where htey put the labels I'm a 16, nah, I'm an 18, nah, I'm a 14 there seems so little consistancy, and often, as much inconsistancy within stuff bought from the same shop, or make/brand Which reminds me, I still need to sort out my second and third knickers drawers

Sizes just vary all over the shop (sorry!), I wouldn't even postulate about supermarket sizongs. The big advantage is. I can take these home, try them on in front of my own mirrors, and if they're not right, as long as I have the receipt I can return them .

True, for things like dresses, skirts, tops etc., at least one can return for a refund/replacement

Thursday 14 November

Day in the office, with Scottish dance class tonight.

One of my rules of shopping is, if you find something you like, buy it in all available clours. So remember the camel coloured Jaegar shirt-waister from last Thursday? I'm wearing the same dress in tomato red today. Over that I have a short-sleeved knitted cardi in biscuit with blue and orange detail, and since it ties at the front I replaced the dress's self tie belt with a wide tan leather one. I bought it some years ago at the M&S outlet, and for a while it was too small for me, so it became my daughter's, and she bequeathed it back to me after I'd lost weight.

I'm returning all but one of the Tesco tenner dresses - one is very low cut at the front, and I'd be too self conscious to wear that at work, and another had a sheer panel at the shoulders, which makes it too tricky to manage visible bra straps.

too low?
*thinks*