Handbag Shopping

Yesterday was a long and busy day for me.
Rather than try to blog about it all in one go I'm going space it out over a couple of posts, partly to avoid boring people but also so that I can take a bit of time to let it all sink in.
Although some of yesterday had a lot of things I'd done before there were a couple of firsts. By firsts I mean fairly major ones for me but I'll get to them in due course.

As I've posted recently I was going to go to Portmouth to a dressing agency, have some pictures done outside and then drive to my hair appointment in the evening. Well I did all of that an more.

While I was at the salon with Zee on Monday having my body defuzzed, I showed her what I was intending to wear for my hair appointment. One of the things I'd planned to wear was a pair of beige, wedge boot style sandals. Unfortunately I didn't have a handbag that would go with them so part of the plan for yesterday was to buy a handbag from somewhere.
On the off chance I couldn't find a suitable beige handbag I decided that I'd take another pair of wedge sandals that I have but which are a) black and b) have had Zee and L drooling over them in the pictures where I'm wearing them.

First thing yesterday morning I rang Jo and Sugar and Spiced, the dressing agency I was going to in order to confirm that I was still going to be there and also to check whether I would be able to shave off any stubble at her place so that I wouldn't get a beard shadow appearing until my day had finished. When she told me that I could then the rest of my day fell into place.
If I'd had to shave before arriving then I would have had to get a handbag at one of the local stores before heading to Portsmouth. As it was I could go to Portsmouth and wander around the shopping area at Gun Wharf Quay in order to find one I liked.
At 10am I set off on the 2 hour drive to Portsmouth. After parking the car I headed into the shopping area with 45 minutes to find that handbag. I was a girl on a mission.
Within 10 minutes I realised that this mission was going to be a lot more difficult than I'd anticipated. Although there were a number of stores that sold handbags either they didn't have anything suitable, were going to be too expensive or looked like I'd have to ask one of the sales assistants rather than simply browsing.
Realising that I was going to run out of time and there was a distinct chance of not finding that perfect bag I decided to go into the Osprey shop. Even with all the sales signs in the window I knew that this could seriously hurt my pocket.
As I entered the shop I could see this rather pretty, petite sales assistant looking at me. Rather than browse for something I headed towards her and enlisted her help.
On telling her that I was looking for a shoulder bag she asked was it for me. Tempting as it was to say yes, I knew that I'd then have to explain that I wanted a ladies shoulder bag and not a mens one.

"Its a present for my wife" I replied.

The young lady then began to show me a selection of shoulder bags from the sales displays. After exhausting those as an option and much as they were nice bags nothing jumped out at me. We started looking at the rest of the bags that were in the price range I wanted to pay.
As we were trying to find something along came another assistant to see if the first one needed any help. After explaining what we were looking for the second one ushered us over to another part of the shop.
Well the bags she showed us were adorable. I took one look at them and knew that it was exactly what I was looking for.
The original assistant picked up one of the bags and showed it to me and I was sold. Before she could even think of showing me another one I told her that I'd take it.
Five minutes later I was leaving the shop with my new Osprey leather shoulder bag. Mission accomplished.
Now I had just enough time put on some coloured nail polish and get to Sugar and Spiced, no time to grab a bite to eat like I'd also planned.