Just 5 days to Christmas and 7 sleeps to go before we fly to London. I can’t believe it!

Googling temperatures, it’s 12 degrees in UK, 7 in Cologne and 4 in Amsterdam.

Lucky I still have my long black cashmere coat. I bought it new in 1997 in the end-of-winter sales. The shape is classic 80s/90s power dressing – all shoulder pads.

I’ve kept the coat as a reminder of my first overseas holiday in December 1997/January 1998 when the four of us travelled on an around the world ticket for 6 weeks. The coat and I traveled to Tokyo, then London, then Warsaw. It wasn’t needed in Athens but it was back on again in Boston and Nantucket Island. Whenever I think about donating the coat to Vinnies, I hesitate and think .. oh .. you never know .. we might get a cold snap one winter .. or we might opt for a white Christmas one year.

No white Christmas this year but the coat and I will be travelling together again. Shame that I no longer have the velour leggings and baggy green jumper that completed the ensemble!