A Shopping Adventure

So "adventure" might be an exaggeration...in your opinion, anyway. However when you're a size 8-10 US (10-12 UK). 5'11", with a shorter torso, longgg legs and arms, and wear a size 11-12 shoe (9-10 UK)...shopping becomes an adventure.

Most of you can stop reading now because we're talking about shoes, and jackets...and marmalade.

We traipsed around the town for a couple of hours today, the primary reason was to try on a dress we'd been eyeing in a shop for a couple of weeks, that's been on clearance, and that James has mentioned he's like to buy for us, since he finally got the new company he is working for to settle on a reasonable rate of pay.

Turns out when we tried the dress on it didn't hit us at the right spot in the waist, so we abandoned that idea, and began attempting to look for a pair of boots, to be worn with either jeans or tights (with a sweater dress); and if we could manage it a fall-winter jacket, something we've been looking for for about 5 years...you try living with monkey arms, it will take you years to find a coat that fits your shoulders, waist and arm length. And giant feet, don't get us started on trying to find a flat boot that we all can agree on...

We went into shop after shop, tried on coats, turned over shoe after show, were forced to talk to sales clerks, who were not sure what to make of us. For example, while we tried on the dress we could have left out the fact that it made a little of fat on our arm puff out in a way we did not like, when she asked. We could almost hear the look on her face from behind the dressing room curtain. Get the "wrong" one of us shopping and we're liable to say anything...no filter.

Marked down from
about  £70 to £30 ($48)

Finally we went into a shop called Long Tall Sally, which was quit small because the town is not very big (we'll be hitting it up when we go to London in two weeks, for damn sure) - while we did not find anything acceptable there, we did get into a conversation with a patron and the clerk (much to our displeasure) and were given the name of another shop in the town with bigger sized shoes.

We found heaven in Evan...s.
Ha, play on words, well, rhyming really, you like that?

Marked down from 
£69.95 to £40 ($64)

While we may not be plus size (Evans is a UK plus size clothing store) we did discover a really nice assortment of boots and shoes! We found a suitable pair of boots, and a great black peacoat. both were on clearance because they are already getting their spring stuff in, so we got the boots and jacket on clearance. Score.

Five years later and we finally have a suitable fall/spring coat that fits, and is exactly what we were looking for...

Exiting, right?
Want more excitement?

YUMMMMY

We also bought marmalade...a lovely British company makes high quality marmalade and jams without using high fructose corn syrup...and James loves the orange marmalade, so we bought him a jar as a gift (we also bought lemon curd to put on English muffins, for us), which we found in a little specialty grocery shop while wandering around a new part of the city. We also bought a hot mango chutney to use in a special sandwich next week. (shhhh, it's a secret)


Tonight we will book the train tickets to London for next weekend, where James and us will visit a friend we met on Twitter (Serentiy_x) and spend the weekend with her wrecking London, going to a nice dinner, and drinking/hanging out at her flat.

London!