My holy grail of bras

I finally got to go out shopping today, for the first time since January.

I've managed to go for dinner out every Tuesday night so far this year, so my average hasn't yet dropped below once every 7 days, but it's not as close to every 5 days as I'd like.

I wandered through a few shops in Charlestown Square, including stopping to chat and getting a photo taken at Tree of Life.

I've previously tried quite hard to find a halterneck bra that met my needs, and had recently looked at modifying a regular bra to convert it to halter, or possibly paying to have a bra made or modified for me. I think that I found my holy grail of bras today. :)

I decided I'd try Bras'n'Things (BnT) first, to see if I could find a full enough coverage bra to cover my breastforms but still show reasonable cleavage, that could be converted to halter. After about 5 bras that just didn't have the coverage, I had just about given up. When I showed the sales assistant the bra that I was wearing, she realised that the middle wasn't as low cut as she was assuming, and came back with another style, Rose by Ultimate Body, which worked! Since it has detachable straps, it can be set up normal, crossover and halter. I'm happy to say that it was only $45, and available in black and skintone, so I bought one of each.

No longer will I have to pass over the halterneck dresses and tops in op shops, as I've done for years. Ditto for narrow backed styles.

I was also looking for the L'Oreal Lash Growth Serum, which I'd been unable to find a few weeks ago. I tried Priceline, no luck. I tried Myer. The woman there said that they didn't have it yet, but try Target. I found the L'Oreal display at Target without any problem. On it, I found a poster advertising the Lash Growth Serum, but an empty shelf alongside it. There was a woman stacking shelves almost right next to me, so I asked her if they had any more. She turned around to a separate stand behind me, about 2 metres from the big L'Oreal display, picked one up and handed it to me. Yay, I finally found it! Since I had to go back past Myer on the way to my car, I stopped to let the woman that I'd spoken to earlier that Target do indeed have it.

Before leaving Myer, I wandered through the shoe section. On a clearance table, I spotted an intensely bright pink suede stiletto in my size. I sat down and tried it, and it fitted quite well. When I asked for the other shoe, the woman went out the back and was gone for several minutes. She eventually came out with some boots that someone else was trying, and told me that she had been searching for the other shoe and couldn't find it. She went out the back again, along with another sales assistant, who came out a few minutes later shaking her head. The first woman came out several minutes later and said that she would have another look later. I thought that she said that she didn't finish until 9pm, but when I went back at about 7pm in boy mode, there was just one man working in the ladies shoe section. He knew about the shoes, which were in a box on a shelf just behind the counter. I checked them for damage, paid and left without the man even raising an eyebrow.

I had another first today. For years, I've always avoided lifts when en femme, I suppose for fear of being stuck briefly with someone who might decide to abuse or attack me. After leaving Charlestown Square, I decided to go to Westfield Kotara to have a look around. Where I parked, I thought I was on the right level to walk straight in the door of the centre but when I walked in the door, I realised that it was another floor up, in an alcove with one lift, which was open. I entered the almost full lift, standing right in the front corner. I held the door open button (backhanded) while a woman wheeled a pram in, then pressed the door close button. The lift went up another level before it went down, and I exited into the centre without incident.

I'd like to say that I took the lift on the way back out, but I didn't. Just outside the door in the carpark, there was a pedestrian ramp, which I chose to use on my way out. I used the lift once, but I'm not going to kick myself for not using it on the way out, because I would probably have done the same in male mode when the lift was that full.