One of the disadvantages of working and travelling is the more complicated wardrobe that is required. Working, unfortunately, requires a generally neater standard of dress than your average backpacker has to come up with. And Asian office environments tend to be more formal than their Aussie or Kiwi equivalents. Footwear, especially, needs more thought, as open sandals are often not acceptable. Working in a Muslim context requires a bit more thought again, in the area of sleeves, dress lengths, necklines, and so on. Plus I have a formal event to contend with.

Hence my major shopping expeditions of the last two days.

Now, unlike many (even most) people, I detest buying clothes. I really can't put that strongly enough. Apart from books, travel, and food, I pretty much detest buying most things, but clothes are in a detestability league all of their own.

So, the last two days have been purgatory, and have offered further proof, as if it were needed, that the world of clothes and I just aren't designed for each other.

Where, in the whole of Melbourne can I find, for example, a plain office-style shirt that a) doesn't have a gaping, open neckline, b) I can afford, and c) actually fits me? Am I really the only woman in this city who isn't six feet tall with arms like a gibbon?

And when the shoeshop person asks me, "Would you normally wear stockings (tights, hosiery, or whatever is the current vogue term) with those?", I just want to reply, "Hell, yeah. Within minutes of purchasing these things, they will metamorphose into twin rottweilers, whose sole purpose in life will be to chew my feet off my ankles. The only thing between them and my delicate skin will be stockings (tights, hosiery, or whatever), possibly supported, if the initial battles go badly, by a judiciously placed line of plasters. Do you mean people actually wear these things right next to their FEET?" I don't say that, of course. I'm already emitting enough "not-your-normal-shopper" vibes for them to have their fingers poised on the security button. But I'm alarmed to discover the world is even less like I think it is.

When you're chained to such a depressing activity, small pleasures mean a lot. Like a muffin at Muffin Break (very nostalgic, that, as it was an old stalwart of our early years in New Zealand, in the days when cupcakes were still something you only got in Simon and Garfunkel lyrics). Or a sweet milky chai from Villa and Hut.

Or the setting up of a row of Chinese and other Asian foodstalls by the river in honour of the lunar new year. Red Chinese lanterns floating overhead, labels full of Singaporean memories (kacang, bak kut teh...), gentle Chinese music drifting down the river.

Best of all, a genuinely interested, helpful, and sympathetic assistant feels like a godsend. So hats off to the lovely lady in Warwick Jones, South Wharf, who gamely steered me through the complexities of buying a suitable formal outfit, while skilfully juggling the requirements of two other anxious buyers. Rest assured -- the next time I'm compelled to buy clothes, I'll be back...