Summer ready, shorts galore

I love spring, and we’re most definitely now in it.  Sod that the equinox hasn’t been and gone yet, meteorologically, March equals spring.  So that means new clothes, lighter, brighter clothes, and sales shopping.

Admittedly, I’m waiting until I lose some more weight (it was going well, but has slowed a bit in the last week or two) before I buy lots of nice clothes for me, but N needs shorts and summer trousers so I can still go shopping.  He’s got masses of t shirts, and a few pairs of shorts that I bought in the sales for this year, but enough pairs are needed so I don’t need to do washing every week if possible.

I’d been pretty disappointed with the shorts offering in Sainsbury’s.  N now straddles their younger boys and older boys ages, so I can usually just about get away with buying across the 2 ranges with an age 4-5 or age 4.  But their range looks a bit faded denim, faded neon of the 19080s.  Wham, eat your heart out.  Usually I buy their coloured chino shorts in several colours and they last really well (here’s hoping some of last year’s might still fit), but I only found 1 pair that I liked that I spotted in their 25% off during half term, before the full range was out.  So one pair of shorts bought – some lovely denim colour chino shorts with boat motifs.  Really cute, and N loves them which is always good.

Luckily Gap had their VIP offer this week (30% online, and an extra 10% off in store).  I love Gap basics for N, but with the amount of wear he gets out of his clothes before growing out of them, I’d rather wait until these  VIP weeks come round.  So a trip into town the other lunch time, a bargain £38 off, and I’d spent 50 odd quid on 5 items for N and 2 summer tops for me (one of which disappointingly went back).

N’s always underwhelmed when I bring back new clothes, but he was quite excited at seeing the shorts.  On top of a few items from the M&S sale, he now has a couple of new t shirts, a pack of 5 socks, a hoodie, 3 pairs of shorts – some jersey pull ons which are good for the nursery or scruffing around in. And a pair of linen mix light summer trousers which you can then convert to cropped – always a weird concept and never the best looking trousers, but they do a good job.  Especially if you’ve got a child who shoots up tall in the summer and you don’t want to buy new trousers, you can make them purposely cropped!

Ok, so there’s a lot of blues and greys, but I’ve got some fairly recent red items recently, so he’ll be looking very nautical for summer.

Now all I need to get him is some summer sandals, and pumps.  Hopefully by the time they’re properly in the shops, he’ll have grown half a size, because otherwise I just know that as soon as I buy new shoes, all of a sudden his feet will grow.  He’s been the same size since August/September, and I’m getting a bit annoyed at going in all the time to get his feet re-measured to find they’re still the same size.  Cheap to run, but a bit annoying when you want to buy the next season’s shoes.

Mind you, N’s in love with the £2 nearly new Clarks trainers I bought him from the NCT sale last weekend.  Absolute bargain because I was planning to get him some for any sport that he starts doing, and for playing out at home.  For £2 they’re perfect…and then on getting them home and out of the box I noticed they’re flashing sole ones.  Arrgghh, I hate lights in shoes.

How’ve you been preparing for summer clothes-wise?  What bargains have you found recently?