I Really Had No Choice. Honest.

I've been shopping. If you know anything about me you'll know that I really, really hate shopping for clothes or pretty much anything else now I come to think of it. I hear someone say 'retail therapy' and my immediate response is 'Are you mad?' For me shopping is something that has to be done, not a pleasure. I don't even window shop as a rule although I make exceptions for looking at - but not buying - jewellery and a fabric shop will get me in any time since it's impossible to have too big a patchwork stash.

The time comes, though, when however much I try to avoid it I'm forced to buy clothing and that's the point I was at on Saturday. I needed some tops to replace old ones being retired to around the house use, some shoes since the soles of my favourites were coming adrift and were quite beyond repair plus some warm pants and some gumboots for the garden.

So I hied me to several websites of stores near us and found the best range of what are now apparently called rain boots at Target. This worked well because the shopping centre where the nearest Target is has a large number of clothing and shoe stores so I could - with luck - get all my needs in one shopping trip. According to the website Target stocked no less than three different styles of rain boots in several colours including sensible matt black. Just what I wanted because this time I was going to be sensible. No more bright red or other multi coloured gardening boots for me. I was going to buy matt black. Not even going to  look at the others. No, sir, not me.

Once we hit the shops while Pisces was doing the grocery shop I was off to Target.  A couple of tops and some warm pants went into the basket and then I was on my way to the shoe section where I was disappointed to find a total of five pairs of boots - one black pair and four shiny red. Determined not to be seduced by red again - if you haven't seen my wardrobe I have to tell you that around three quarters of what's in there is red - I looked further along the aisles. Nope, not another rain boot in sight.

I didn't even have to pick up the black pair to know they were much too big and so was one of the red pairs. So I was down to three shiny red pairs - and ooh they were so pretty and they were all my size. Now someone else would probably have thought well, let's go to another shop, but I'm not that someone. I had the perfect excuse of shiny red boots that fitted and I wouldn't have to go shopping anywhere else. Woohoo! See I really did have no choice.