My god. The sales are here.

Sometimes I talk to clothes and accessories.

Not talk talk, but a little bit. Like, I'll walk past a pair of shoes or a dress and I'll say 'Hel-lo'. It's not intentional. It just comes out from somewhere. Usually this is in my head, but not always. Not enough.

I had placed myself under a shop moratorium from Monday until Friday when Lucy came. I planned to use her visit, and her possession of pounds, to shop through her. During my moratorium I did not go into a single shop. But I did catch myself gasping- actually out loud gasping- at a pair of shoes during this moratorium. And I talk-thought to these shoes 'I'll see you on Friday. I'm under a moratorium'.

Anyway, today I planned to go to Segovia. Honestly I got to the station at the right time and everything. Several queues, information personnel and wait-for-your-number-to-be-calleds later I was not in Segovia. I was still very much in Madrid and still very much ignorant as to why I could not get anyone to sell me a ticket to Segovia. And I thought, fine, Madrid is clearly conspiring against me. It does not want to lose me to a day trip. Fair enough, fair enough.

So I plugged in my sister's iPod and blasted some Wolfmother. Not my favourite band, but sometimes you need your music to take a bat to a thousand glass windows for you. I wanted everyone who could hear that clangy buzz to know that I was angry and yet mysteriously outwardly calm. And be a little afraid. Like a fighting monk - we look peaceful but just you watch yourself.

Then I wandered. Doing my best to ignore the fact that I had again failed to leave the city. And I came across this:

And suddenly the world was beautiful again.

I got a bit twitchy. I kept thinking I was behind all the other women. 'I don't know their stock. I don't know their stock!' I walked in to shop after shop totally disoriented. Half of the shops are multiple levels and the clothes are packed so tight on the racks you'd need forceps to extract a pair of jeans. I actually felt my hands twitching. I'd start walking in one direction and then turn, for no reason, to the opposite direction. Pause and then turn into a different direction again. And then I'd just have to leave. Flustered. But happy. The sales are here.

But my entire world is 85 litres plus hand luggage. I just cannot stuff that backpack anymore. And I'm alreading leaving my mu-mu with my sister when I leave Madrid. It seems that the ironic beauty of a mu-mu does not transcend even the smallest of cultural barriers. Why mu-mu? Why?

But I have found fashion Esperanto. The stripey shirt. I still like it. But I have started wanting to very, very slowly stick very long needles into the bodies of those who wear them.

Sorry this whole entry is on shopping. But, you know, I didn't get to Segovia. A girl's gotta console herself. And my only friend in this entire country is the red mark through a price tag.