The price and value of stuff.

Sitting on the train waiting for it to set off from Newcastle to Manchester, I listened to the routine announcements all about seat reservations, numbers, looking after your luggage and so on. Amazingly, unlike the last time we travelled on this particular service, they actually opened the doors to the train a good five minutes before departure. Last time it was only about one minute in advance, barely time for people to stow heir luggage before setting off. We arrived at the station in plenty of time, following the advice of our friend in Gateshead who suggested we should leave her house at 1.45 to ensure catching our 3.10 train without any stress. I suppose we could have had more delays, this being Sunday and buses running on a reduced schedule, but we caught a bus just before 2.00 to the Gateshead interchange, hopped almost immediately onto the metro to go to Newcastle Central Station. As a result we were there by 2.15, plenty of time for coffee and wander around a bit before being able to board the train. 

This train takes us through our local station, Greenfield, but does not stop there. So we wave to all the familiar places and continue to Manchester, from where we have to make our way back by tram and bus. I suppose a so-called express service can't stop at every station along the way, just for our convenience! 

Reading the paper this morning I found the usual sort of fashion anomalies. On one page there was an interview with a Radio 1 presenter who apparently owns 52 pairs of trainers. Why does anyone need 52 pairs of trainers? I freely admit that I have more shoes than are really necessary but they are not all of the same kind. However, it is almost certainly true that I could manage with fewer pairs. On the same page in the newspaper was some advice from the "ethical editor". I was unsure whether this was the editor who just happens to be ethical or a specific editor who deals with things ethical. Probably the latter. Anyway he, or possibly she, was giving advice on clothes buying, stuff like checking where the garments were made, what sort of dyes were used and so on. The one that struck me was this: "Only buy if you can commit to wearing the item at least 30 times". How many years before the radio presenter has worn all her trainers 30 times? I wonder!

Perhaps we should all stop and examine our wardrobes in the light of this advice. How many things have we bought on impulse and only worn a couple of times? Funnily enough, my friend and I had been talking along just those lines. She had been roped into helping a couple of friends buy an outfit for a wedding. One of them could afford to buy the sort of items that feature in colour magazine articles: jackets that cost £225 and so on. The other had to set herself a limit to what she spent on the whole outfit - dress, jacket, shoes, hat and all the other trimmings. We both stopped and thought about expensive items we had bought and the number of times we had worn them, the price-per-wear going down with each time the outfit came out of the wardrobe. As if, my friend reflected, there were not more important problems in the world, and indeed in our own lives, than the value per wear of our clothes. 

But if you stop and think about it, if you buy a dress for £120 and you wear it 30 times, that makes it £4 per wear, much more reasonable. However, it does mean you have to go to 30 posh events before you change your dress size and discover you can't even get into you pricey frock!