Yesterday was a BIG day for me.

I made a brilliant discovery yesterday post Running School session – and I don’t mean realising that my left hip flexor is not amused by this new style of running – rather *Westfield* is on my walk home from The Running School. {For those that know me – I am clapping penguin-like- for anyone who doesn’t know me – this is how I show my love/delight/excitement publically. I never said I was remotely cool!}

My new mantra!

*Westfield* for anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure already, is the magnificent and surprisingly architectural London temple for all those indoctrinated shopaholics. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, it is an equally inspiring place for any fashion non-believers out there too.

I am the first to admit that shopping centres and clothes shopping has not really excited me in the past. At all. I love the quirkiness of fashion; I adamantly admire fashionable and effortlessly chic dressers and I love spotting what trends are coming online and deciding if and how much I am a convert. I also love that I can mentally conjure up the perfect outfit and moreover how I should look in it.

But I haven’t loved the blunt reality of never being able to make my fairytale of the perfect ensemble come true. Instead I have been a devout follower of the “urgh - pleeeeeease let me find something that fits, that doesn’t resemble a tent typically in a hideous shade of gunk and that doesn’t require me to traipse round every store in a 2 mile radius just to settle on some mediocre cut in black” school of clothes shopping.

For anyone who is or has been larger than a perfect size 10-14 –you’ll be intimately familiar with this nightmare and I feel your pain. For anyone fortunate enough never to have known this hell – now’s the time to get on your knees and give thanks to the all the shopping deities.

However, yesterday stumbling upon *Westfield* – HELL became HEAVEN. The excitement at the now very real potential of a beautiful ending to a shopping trip came back in a BIG way – so much so I had 6!!! items in my arms that I was all set to become the fabulous new owner of before I checked myself – and remembered “not yet, not before I’ve lost those few final pounds, hang on just a few weeks more.”

I'm gonna need a shopping bag THIS big when I finally become Mission Fabulous!

What hit me most during this shopping nirvana was the epiphany of a shop assistant convincing me to try on a size 10. I was totally shocked someone would even suggest such a thing before I remembered I’ve gotton a bit smaller. My habit of immediately checking to see if there is a large size on the rail is TOTALLY ingrained.

So I am off to curl up in bed with my Fashion Bibles – Look, Elle and Marie Claire – as well as the Autumn look books of some of my favourite brands – particularly Derhy, Mint Velvet and Jesire – really anything stocked by the AWESOMELY fashion forward House of Fraser. After all, I have many new perfect slim line outfits to plot so that over the next five perfect Saturdays, I can hone my new perfect wardrobe at *Westfield*.

This thought alone is making the prospect of surviving five more hardcore Saturday Running School Sessions TOTALLY worth it! x