For some reason, I’m not having a very good week for trousers. The first pair I put on developed a fairly substantial rip in the seat. Worse still, I noticed earlier in the day and forget to change them before going to Monday’s choir rehearsal. I didn’t keep my outdoor coat on but I think my fellow choir members must have been preoccupied with the mixture of low temperature and new music – certainly no-one pointed out the hole!

I switched to a pair of hiking trousers. No rips in those but the zipper wasn’t working well. It is a nylon coil one and I realised it was becoming detached from its backing – harder and harder to pull up and down and increasingly likely to fail entirely. I’ve now picked up a new pair of trousers (smart black corduroy using a cotton / lycra blend) and they seem to fit well. Hopefully they won’t succumb to any similar fate, this week at least!

And, yes, I did pick them up on a grocery shopping trip in Lidl. There’s a temptation to buy all sorts of additional stuff in there but every now and then they do manage to have exactly what you need down the magical middle aisle.