I am lusting after...

...denim dungarees. I just love them. Years ago, just after the birth of my second child, I bought my first pair, and I had at least one other (the boiler suit was another matter. A terrible mistake, best forgotten). Dungarees are cool and comfortable, they don't have a waist so I don't have to have one either, and they look great with checked shirts.

So I told my daughter, who is beautiful, and fashion conscious, and my style guru (I have no style but I do have my guru). Her response was pretty well unprintable, but she did say that she wouldn't  be seen dead in my company if I wore dungarees. She also mentioned a piece of straw in the mouth as an accessory, which was silly, wasn't it? My granddaughter, on the other hand, said that dungarees are in at the moment (really?), and "go for it, Granny". Lovely child, Phoebe. I always said so.

That's all, really. I'm off to Google cheap dungarees.

"Planning your autumn wardrobe"

"It is hard to start thinking about your autumn wardrobe when it's still summer" says the Times today. My anwswer to this would be: in that case, don't. But then I don't have an autumn wardrobe. Or, come to that, a spring wardrobe. I have winter clothes (jeans, shirts and sweaters) and summer clothes (ditto, but tee shirts if the weather's warm). Oh - and occasionally skirts. I see no point in having spring and autumn clothes, since the rest do the job well eneough, and I quite simply can't be bothered.

But in case you are (bothered), apparently this season (ha) "jackets, cardigans and bags must be outsized". Why? I've no idea. This bewildering advice was accompanied by a picture of a woman carrying what looked more like a sizeable overnight bag than a handbag; room for a lot more than money and tissues and keys and old train tickets and a library book and sundry receipts and half a Polo mint and the interesting stone your (grand)son gave you and...you get the picture.

But if you do want advice in assembling your autumn wardrobe, you (possibly) read it here first.

Piece-keeping

I am not an aficionado (aficionada?) of the fashion pages, but I've noticed a distressing trend. Clothes are no longer referred to as clothes; they are "pieces". This may not be new - perhaps I've only just noticed - but it strikes me as terribly pretentious. I mean, does anyone wash, iron, fold, shop for their "pieces"? Of course they don't. In any case, I'm sure my pieces don't even merit the name. My winter pieces consist invariably of jeans, shirt and sweater (we won't go into underpieces); my summer pieces, ditto, only with tee shirts.

So maybe it has always been thus; perhaps it's just me. Maybe I'm just not a pieces person. But as I type this with frozen fingers (waiting for Himself to finish the Sunday papers and come and do something more interesting, like open a bottle of wine), I can't wait to put away the sweaters and get into my summer pieces (I don't have spring pieces; I've never seen the point).