And all I really want is the new Scissor Sisters CD

It’s my birthday very very soon. I dread it. This is because for my birthday I have to have an expensive item of clothing, like a pair of shoes or a coat or something, to replace whatever has worn out since the last time said item came up in the birthday cycle. This is not only because we are poor as little hungry, cold and tatty church mice but also because I hate shopping and hate clothes, so have a tiny tiny wardrobe. I don’t hate clothes in the I’d-Prefer-To-Walk-Around-Naked kind of a way. I hate clothes in a What-A-Pointless-Waste-Of-Time-Open-Brackets-And-Also-Newspaper-Print-Close-Brackets-Fashion-Is kind of a way.

How odd then that I should look so hot you’re thinking, aren’t you? Aren’t you?

I’ve now learnt that me and the Saturday Guardian don’t mix so I don't speak from first hand experience, but tD went into a paroxysm of rage a couple of weekends ago when she read in the magazine that one of the female fashion persons had saved up to buy a slender tone machine when she was twelve. Twelve years of age that is. Honestly. If BB saves up for a slender tone machine when she is twelve years of age I will consider myself an abject failure as a parent and I will do myself, BB, tD and the rest of the nascent population a favour and top myself forthwith. And she wrote this herself, like she was proud of it. Bizarre.

Anyway, back to me.

I find myself the proud owner of merely five shirts, eight t-shirts, two pairs of jeans, a pair of baggy dark olive green trousers, a pair of fisherman pants, two (and a half) jumpers, a tank top, a cardigan, two suits, a pair of proper shoes, a pair of broken wabis and a pair of Birkenstocks. A green leather jacket, a navy velvet jacket and a bright blue hoodie. And that is all. And underwear obviously, including vests. Also, passable gym kit including same vests and trainers.

Sadly though Birthday /Time To Buy A Coat is upon us. I got away without one last year by Layering-Up but as I am now a responsible parent I’m going to have to stop looking so much like the Artful Dodger and more like Mary Poppins. This means that I will be dragged round a variety of shops trying on coat after coat after coat until one which is deemed Suitable is found. I will then take Suitable Coat back after a week and change it for the first one I saw.

Then we will have the mildest winter in the history of winters and I will be permanently too hot.

And then it will be Christmas. By which time I will have worn out my jeans and will need a new pair. Then there will be recriminations because I have allowed them to drag along the floor at the back and worn them out faster (true).

They also, apparently, wear out faster because I only wash them once a month. They are jeans. They are inherently self cleaning (less true).

On the positive side though (as I am adopting a more sunny approach again this week) it might be all different at The Shops with BB and extensive accessories in tow and I do wash my jeans more regularly as they do get vomited over with more frequency these days. And not by me I hasten to add.