Last updated 19:42, Thursday, 17 July 2008

THIS WEEK I have been browsing around the sales.

It was not a happy experience. I didn’t buy anything because I didn’t see anything I wanted and, as my granny used to say, if you don’t really need something, or it doesn’t fit you properly, then it isn’t a bargain.

Now, there were times when I would have paid no heed to this maxim. I well remember sitting in agony at a Melbreak Hunt ball in the village hall because I was too proud to admit that my beautiful lace-up purple suede boots, an unmissable half price bargain from a trendy boutique in Whitehaven (yes, there was such a thing) were giving me merry hell because they were actually half a size too small. My main concern when I bought them was that (a) they would tone with my aubergine suede mini-skirt and pink skinny-rib sweater and (b) they were a bargain.

Such things don’t concern you when you are young - you will happily buy a size 10 dress in the hope that you will lose enough weight to fit into it. And you probably will. But 30 years on you realise it would be a shrewd move to buy something with an elasticated waist, or even something a size bigger than you need, just to be on the safe side.

And so back to the sales. There were plenty of bargains on offer if you live in leggings and smocks, those knee-length trousers, midriff-bearing boob tubes or if your favourite colours are bilious orange and eye-watering lime green.

But, as a correspondent to our letters page pointed out recently, if you’re past that stage but not yet ready for the polyester pinafore dress and angora beret look, you’ve had it.

So what is a grumpy old woman to do? Well, here are a couple of fashion tips, gained from years of buying unsuitable stuff in sales.

1. Never wear wide legged trousers. You will only catch one foot in the other leg and fall over.

2. Never wear a see-through top through which all your robust rigging, including your favourite Rawhide bra (the one that rounds them up and heads them off) can be seen.

3. And keep away from the sales. Unless, as Maureen Lipman used to ask in those old BT adverts, they have something with a scalloped edge.