Who ordered Autumn early?

 This is usually my favourite time of year, as spring slides into summer, but the weather here in Britain has been truly awful. Rain, rain, rain and... oh, more rain! I shouldn't grumble too hard; one part of Lincolnshire is flooded after getting two months' rain in two days, but it would be better for my tomato plants and flowers if we had some more sunshine.

The upshot of all this horrid weather is that I've dug out my winter coat again, and have been wearing my heavier clothing again. This blue dress is the one I bought to wear to a work event earlier this year. It ended up causing a massive anxiety flare-up for me. I had thought of getting rid of the dress – it was a charity shop purchase to start with – but you know what? I like this dress. And it's not the dress's fault I had such a bad time the first time I wore it again. So I wore it again and had a good day, and it's not an unlucky dress.


The first time I wore the dress, I had to wear shapewear with it, but I'm a few pounds down now and didn't need it this time. I've been using MyFitnessPal to count calories, and while I'm not always good at sticking to its limits, it is making me more aware of what I'm consuming and my weight is dropping slowly. (And yes, my back is feeling better, though that could also be the more frequent gym attendance helping tone up my muscles. I'm determined to get myself fitter and less achy.) It's really lovely looking through my wardrobe at my too-small vintage and thinking some of it might be wearable later this year, rather than that I should just get rid of it all.

Another thing I was thinking of getting rid of but am glad I hung onto is this man's black shirt. I bought it in a sale years ago, and thought my style had changed, but wore it again this week and thought it looked pretty good, so I guess I'll be keeping it after all.

And all those old clothes brings me onto slow fashion season, an initiative getting people to pledge not to buy new clothes for three months. If you follow any of the same bloggers or Instagrammers as me you've probably heard about it already. Well, I have absolutely no plans to buy any new clothes, but I don't feel I can sign up to the campaign in good faith as I already know I'm going to be buying new fabric during the next three months. Even if I make myself things using secondhand fabric or cloth out of my stash, I am planning to make a shirt for Pete, and that's going to mean new cloth. He has very particular tastes. Okay, the scheme is no more new clothes for onesself, but new cloth for my hobby seems a bit too close to the line. That said, I will pledge to you here and now to buy no new readymade clothes for three months – I'll be wearing things out of the wardrobe (including, fingers crossed, some of that too-small vintage), and anything new for myself will be made of secondhand cloth or wool/fabric from my stash.

Has the awful weather made you turn back to your winter wardrobe too?