“You won’t let me buy any clothes. Now you won’t let me buy a road map, either!I need to spend some money or I’m going to go crazy!”

“Becky . . .” Luke looks at me carefully. “Have you ever been on a horse in your life?”“Yes! Of course I have!”Once. When I was ten. And I fell off.But I probably wasn’t concentrating or something.“Just be careful, won’t you?” he says. “I’m not quite ready to become a widower.”

“Now, do you mind telling me what the fuck is going on?”

“For years now I've kind of operated under an informal shopping cycle. A bit like a farmer's crop rotation system. Except, instead of wheat, maize, barley, and fallow, mine pretty much goes clothes, makeup shoes, and clothes (I don't bother with fallow). Shopping is actually very similar to farming a field. You can't keep buying the same thing, you have to have a bit of variety. Otherwise you get bored and stop enjoying yourself.”

“Oh God, I'm miss­ing the gene which makes you grow up and buy a flat in Streatham and start visiting Homebase every weekend. Everyone's moving on without me, into a world I don't understand.”

“So I buy it. The most perfect little cardigan in the world. People will call me the Girl in the Gray Cardigan. I’ll be able to live in it. Really, it’s an investment.”

“Books are educational; so you can buy as many as you want." Sophie Kinsella, shopping at the Limelight Marketplace”