It’s autumn, and with the autumn I always start to look critically at my wardrobe.

(That, and we’ve booked a trip to Paris in October. You can’t go to Paris looking like a rat’s ass. They wouldn’t let you in.)

So I’m a redhead. Tall, built like a Valkyrie, the sort of shoulders and backside you get from hefting a sword and riding horses and beating cakes. (Yes, Het Babbitt, but taller.)

Wispy slips and dinky prints do nothing for me then. It’s got to be full-on, in your face, you were going to look anyway kind of thing. I’d love to be able to carry off wispy and romantic but I’m just shy of six feet tall. Tisn’t happening.

I always wear trousers. (Should I ? Well, that’s another story, gentle reader, isn’t it?) Usually flats – see above – and I usually have a big sensible handbag that’s full of books and iPads and pens and competent junk.

I’d like to be glamorous_ really I would, she says wistfully.

So – deep breath +- let’s go.