Make do and mend

I am rummaging through one of three big boxes and one cupboard we keep stuffed with fabric offcuts and old clothes.

I'd like to say this is because I am wary of spending huge amounts of money on kid's clothes, but it isn't. I did that last week.

No. This is because I did that last week. I took Shark to Gap and stocked her up with clothes for an impending clothes wearing ordeal. Today I ask her naively if she'd actually like to wear any of those expensive and delightful items we bought at great cost to our souls last week at Gap. She considers this for a moment, puts her head on one side, pulls up her top lip and says slowly Well actually mummy, like she's going to explain exactly why she cannot wear any of these items and why I will spend the rest of my days trying to persuade Squirrel and Tiger to like blue.

Stop right there I command. Tell me no more because I want to die in ignorance of what you are about to say.

Then I drag out of the cupboard an old blue cotton Laura Ashley dress, Shark's real favourite, one she wore and wore and wore until I had to hide it away where she should never find it. This dress was so thin in parts that your breath and this fabric take up the same air space.

Then I locked the door and I hacked away at this dress with scissors and needles. Two hours later I presented Shark with a skirt of this very same material gathered and trimmed, and she is now wearing that in such complete happiness and joy that I have got back to the cupboard and dragged out an old shirt and six more dresses.

And the rest of my day is spent right here.