Excess-Material Girl

Clothes shopping. I'd call it a necessary evil but I do actually find some enjoyment in it, so I'd say I have a love/hate relationship with it. Finding the perfect top/skirt/dress etc, is a difficult mission, but when you find it it's a particularly special moment, one that has the power to put you in a great mood for the rest of the day. I have two big weaknesses; one being food, the other being money-spending. I can barely go a day without spending something, anything. Anything at all. From a Mars bar at the vending machine to a scratch card at the Coop kiosk, I don't feel complete until I've made a transaction at some point during my day. I swear to God I once had a minor panic attack when I realised I'd come home from work minus a carrier bag. I had to run across the road to buy a Wham! bar. Some people are addicted to alcohol, some people are addicted to drugs. My drug is spending. Years ago when I lived in Wales I struggled financially and, consequently, emotionally, as unemployment was high and everybody around me was Welsh. I couldn't shop. I could barely afford bread. It was a depressing time, in more ways than one. I learnt to be very frugal, so once I'd moved back to England and found my feet again I had developed a sensible approach to budgeting and spending. But once I realised I had money left over at the end of the month again my shopping addiction was reinstated and I was back to my normal self again; broke and happy instead of broke and miserable.

Now I've moved in with Darren I'm more careful with my spending. Sort of. The temptation to spend never leaves me. At lunchtimes now I have to go sit down by the harbour and lose myself in a book, or dream about which boat I'm going to buy with all the money I don't have because I can't stop buying Mars bars and scratch cards. (On a separate note, did you ever notice how boat-owners look nothing like you imagine them to look like? I see a huge sparkling white boat and expect Leo DiCaprio or Betty Grable lookalikes to come striding down the jetty. In reality it's more like Leo Sayer and Betty from Coronation Street. Anyway, I digress....). I have responsibilities now; we have a future wedding and a house of our own to think about. I've always wanted to own my home rather than rent, I had ideas of what the décor would look like since I was a kid. But evidently the dream home was always crushed by my burning desire to have matching shoes and bags. I deeply regret this now, but what's done is done. I've finally found a job I enjoy and I have an opportunity to get saving. I also finally have a partner who's pretty good with money, so we're able to work together at saving. Plus I'm quite good at hiding receipts.

The reason why clothes shopping is a love/hate thing is because of my weight. My weight is up and down more than a schizophrenic off their meds. Although lately I've found my weight is staying very much up. I love food and I hate exercise. I'm in a no-win situation. My biggest bug bear is my stomach. I can't lose it no matter what I do. I'm currently on a bit of a health kick, so watch this space, but for many years I have had issues finding the right size clothing because of my belly. I float between sizes 14 and 16, but I'm now starting to creep into an 18 in certain shops. I once had to do a photo-shoot and the fashion lady told me I was definitely a size 12. I insisted that I was, at the time, a size 14. But she insisted I squeeze into a 12. I came out of the dressing room and was greeted by a smug smile. That smile wasn't so smug when she noticed after the shoot that I'd broken the zip trying to get it done up. It fitted me ok as long as I didn't move. Or breathe. Why am I different sizes in different shops?? It's incredibly annoying. It's even harder trying to buy clothes online. I don't even bother looking at trousers online. I wonder sometimes if certain clothing manufacturers hire blind people in their factory, to make their equal rights statistics look good. Trousers are either too tight around the belly and fit ok in the leg, or fit fine around the belly but have a huge excess of material around the legs - making you look as if your hips are bigger than they are, or giving you a saggy crotch that looks as if you're hiding an extra appendage. My biggest dread is having to buy jeans. They are the bane of my life. I fucking hate low-rise jeans - why on earth would you want the world to see your butt crack every time you crouch down? I don't own a comfortable pair of jeans at the moment, but I'm hoping that changes when I lose the belly fat. I can never wear a pair of jeans if I'm going somewhere that involves sitting down. I feel as if I'm being garrotted. The last time I made that mistake I honestly thought I was going to cough up my spleen. Then there are shops like Miss Selfridge and Topshop, who only now seem to cater for tarty students and hipsters. Ask a sales assistant for a size 18 and they look at you as if you've just admitted to window-licking. You may as well just ask - Do you have this in a size "might-as-well-be-wearing-a-fucking-tent"? It's embarrassing. It's bad enough to be in a dressing room full of walking bags-of-bones moaning about how "fat" they are. Oh forget it, I'll go see if Go Outdoors has a sale on.

Fashion "experts" say "wear a big statement belt and it'll disguise a big tum". No you twat, it doesn't. It looks like a big fucking tum with a big fucking belt accentuating the fact that you need a big fucking belt to hide the big fucking tum!! I tried it; I look like Tweedle-Dee. There is practically nothing you can do to hide a fat belly. Wear loose clothing and you look like an overweight person trying to hide fat. Wear black and you look like an overweight person wearing black. You can buy all the "tummy control" underwear in the world, but don't you realise the fat has to go somewhere..? It doesn't just disappear into space; the underwear just pushes the fat from one place to another! I tried wearing a pair of those control pants a few years ago and it looked as if I had a spare third boob underneath my cleavage.

When you finally manage to find an outfit that you actually feel good in you feel like you could conquer the world. Just you and your black halterneck jumpsuit with zebra-print belt. The feeling of spending money on something fabulous is exhilarating. I love walking through the city armed with shopping bags full of exciting things that I'll want to wear all in one go, as soon as possible. It's just those nagging things that make it soul-less, like bored 17 year old sales assistants who chew gum with their mouth open and can't look you in the eye when they serve you, or weight issues making clothes shopping an often traumatising experience. At the moment I'm sticking with DVDs and shoes, they're more forgiving.

I may not have any life savings, but I'm incredibly proud to say I have a pair of shoes to match every outfit!