Spring cleaning this year turned up one of my really good suede miniskirts - it would make a nice handbag.

My daughter stared at the waist in disbelief - I wore it when I was about her age, and it is three sizes too small for her.

The trick was a big black labrador dog. I used to get on my bike and ride to the next village along the old aerodrome road, very little used. The dog would run around across the open fields. I used to stop at the bench by the war memorial to get my breath back, and the dog would have a rest and a drink at the water trough, but in ten minutes he'd be waving a paw at me asking to get going again, so we would set off back at the same speed.

Doing that every day plus two walks, one in the morning and one at lunchtime was the way to reduce waist size. I was doing food storage testing then, eating loads of pure junk and it made no difference, was just burnt off.

I did weigh about 15 to 20 pounds more than all the women I knew, but none of them could wear my skirt size - in fact one of them burst a zip trying to put one of my skirts on.

Come to think of it the dog was really slender around the middle and rear end, with big broad shoulders, and labradors tend to be heavy due to their 'I'll eat it' attitude.

So that is about an hour and a half on foot chasing a very fit dog and three quarters to an hour of cycling - ditto dog.

I think I would need to get a rather small dog these days - otherwise I might just keel over after the first ten miles.

Anne the Pleater :ootd: