Summer Stylings

I've been having wardrobe issues recently. I estimate a good 50% of the stuff I own is either cardigans or jumpers and although the pretty frock collection is ever increasing, I don't want to spend the entire summer in dresses. So in the spirit of being organised, I made myself a little try-on list and headed off to the retail park yesterday morning to see what worked.

Things I concluded:

• Shorts do not suit me, in any cut, length or style.
• Pale coloured linen trousers make me look pregnant
• I am too short for cropped trousers to look good, unless they are sort of knee length and then they just look a bit too much like boy shorts for my liking.
• I am hovering between a 14 and a 16 on my lower half so there's not much point buying anything for a while anyway!
• I can't stop spending money. Really, I must get a grip. Some of the things I bought were exchanged for some shoes that had to go back but even so, I went out with the full intention not to buy anything and utterly failed.

I'm not going to show you pics of the stuff I did buy because I've realised just how many of those posts I've been doing recently and it shames me a little. Tut tut. I will show you two of the things though because I ended up wearing them later that evening in sort of vague homage to England. I don't do football shirts or obvious/tacky representations of my patriotism but a little red and white is good for the soul. While I'm on the subject, if you don't like footy, you don't like footy; you don't have to pretend just because it's the national team! Sorry but it irks me. And for the record I love football so will be mostly be found in front of a tv screen for the next 3 weeks.

T shirt - Gap
Skirt & pumps - Dorothy Perkins
Marauding cat - Oscar!

I think I'll be channeling this look quite a lot over the summer. I wonder about my brain sometimes - I was bemoaning my upper arms (I won't have them out on show, I just won't) and wondering about whether I'd be stuck in cardis all summer and then remembered that tshirts exist. Not quite sure how I'd managed to forget entirely about such an obvious piece of clothing, but there you go.

Also, I'm rather liking Gap. I genuinely don't think I've been in a Gap store for about 10 years - it's just not a place that enters my shopping radar - but I walked past it on the way to get the Saturday paper and popped in. Well, I was impressed. Lots of lovely stuff and super helpful staff. Admittedly some of the clothing is on the classic side of things (ie dull) and perhaps a little bit more expensive than I would usually go for but this tshirt is fab and wasn't pricey. Might go back and get it in blue once I get paid. You may notice that I've taken everyone's advice about horizontal stripes!