"I know you're not Indian, darling"

Yesterday we headed over to Southall to get Ant measured up - the last of the bridesmaids to be done. We also decided to have a look and see if we could get any collarless Indian shirts for the blokes to wear with their Nehru jackets. This was all very exciting for me, having never been to 'New New Delhi' before.

After having to turn back half-way down the A20 to pick up the material for Ant's dress that we'd managed to leave at home, we hit heavy traffic on the M25 and thus were fairly late for the rendezvous with Ant at a multi-storey car park just of the Broadway. Luckily, she'd got lost herself, so hadn't been waiting that long. Unluckily, there were no spaces at the car park, and things were getting rather heated in the car. Finally, we found a place to park near the station that not only didn't have yellow lines, also wasn't for permit holders only.

So, we trooped off up to the dressmakers and Ant got measured up. Interesting place, can't say I've been to too many Indian women's clothes shops before (make that a big fat none - no, not a big fat nun! Oh never mind...). Having done that, Ant headed off, and we took a break from the bright sun and heat of Southall in a pub that smelt of wee but had cold Magners on sale.

The search for appropriate shirts took us to a few men's clothing shops where we drew a few blank looks when we told them what we wanted. Most wanted to sell us the knee-length smock variety, which are fine but wouldn't go with the short jackets we'll be wearing.

Anyway, we got lucky when we wandered in a small clothes shop at the back of one of the many little bazaars off the Broadway (if you've not been to Southall, imagine a casbah with 1930's suburban English architecture). The lady in there told us she's recently made just the type of shirts we'd needed for a Jamaican bloke who'd wanted ten of them (plus jackets and trousers) for the men in his wedding party. She got one out and it was just the thing we were looking for - round collars with embroidery around the collar and down the front of the shirt.

So, we ordered the six we needed in cream with silver-threaded and red-beaded embroidery (I think - Simmi?) and the nice lady said she'd have them ready in two weeks. When she took our names for the order, she remarked on Simmi's Indian name, but had trouble spelling "Brian", which is a name she obviously doesn't come across on a day-to-day basis.

I helpfully added that my name wasn't Indian, at which she looked at me in the particular way that kindly primary school teachers look at one of their charges when they ask if it's true that if you swallow chewing gum, it winds around your guts and stays there for seven years, and said, "I already know you're not Indian, darling!"

We rounded the trip off with a visit to Quality Foods Indian supermarket to buy some pukka Punjabi tucker - and a pint bottle of Lea & Perrins! A successful day all round.