Field trip

Today, I began a course on clothesmaking at the Adult Education centre which is a great novelty as in previous years I have been at work earning a crust whilst these things are going on and my previous ventures into Adult Ed have been after work under the cover of darkness. But now I am a 'kept woman' I can indulge in these activities. It gets me out of the house and prevents me from forgetting how to converse civilly with human beings without descending into a series of random clucks and purrs. Plus I get to learn how to make a frock.

Off I trot, with my shiny new folder, notebook, pencil and pen, a pair of scissors, packet of pins and finally, the instrument of the devil, a tape measure. I find the Adult Ed centre, and successfully locate the room in which the course is being held. The tutor is nice, the class is small and after an hour it is revealed we are being sent on a field trip.

'Please don't let it be Boxley Quarry,' I pray. The last field trip I went on was to Boxley Quarry which might be a geographical wonder but is full of chalk and flint, and has steep slopes with forests of nettles for poor thirteen year old girls to fall into and get muddy and wet. (No laughing at the back, please. It wasn't funny.)

'I'm sending you to C & H Fabrics to buy your patterns,' says the tutor. Phew - not to Boxley Quarry then. Off we trot, all chatting about what we are going to attempt for our first project. I decide on either a dress - it will be nice to have a frock that fits my top half without ballooning into masses of fabric over my bottom half - or a skirt. Something swooshy for the winter to wear with boots. Or if I can find a pattern for a swing coat and I feel brave, a swing coat. Just don't get a pattern for a top I instruct myself. You've got quite enough tops all ready.

You can see the shop assistants thinking 'Oh Lor' here comes the next batch of Adult Ed amateur frock makers', as we chatter our way to the basement floor - ' patterns, wool, fabric and haberdashery'. We swoop on the pattern books, hogging them all at the expense of other shoppers. We are like a new breed of middle age craft hooligans. I find a swing coat; a 'Retro pattern' apparently, and I like it. I take the number to the assistant who marches off to fetch it (I think she is, by now, getting fed up with our giggling, especially over the patterns for Father Christmas outfits). She returns with the pattern but 'Unfortunately, Modom, this one only goes up to a size 14.' Well that's no good, I say. Clearly I am not going to fit a 14. I need a 16. I am sent back, like a naughty child, to have another look. I begin to panic. Everyone else has chosen and purchased their patterns. I am almost seduced by a two piece combo of clown trousers and duvet cover in orange polyester 'especially for the fuller figure' but grabbing a Vogue catalogue I see sense, make my purchase and leave the shop clutching my new pattern.

For another top...