I’ll be blunt – I’m terrible at making friends. As some of you know, I have social anxiety and I’m quite awkward so that doesn’t really help! I don’t have many friends but the ones I do have are very precious to me indeed. As one of my resolutions this year was to buy less and do more, I decided to get to know some of my acquaintances a little better.

I’d met Holly at the first Tiki Pin-Up meeting but it was really brief. The second time round, we actually managed to have more of a conversation. After a bit of chit-chat online, I plucked up some courage and suggested a meet-up.

For our day out, I put on my beloved Collectif jacket and my new Vivien of Holloway cherry tartan circle skirt with my Dr Martens to stomp about in.

In contrast to my head-to-toe repro look, Holly donned a Canterbury Tycora sweater (1950s), a 1959 Jonathan Logan dress, a Carl of New York 1947 coat, a Jane Shilton handbag, Marks and Spencer shoes, a 1940s red beret and a 1950s Coachhouse trail scarf.

We ended up spending the day in Wallingford. My lovely other half @darktechsupport came along too. After getting out of our cars, we went on the hunt for tea. We came across the loveliest pottery cafe which served up the scrummiest Victoria sponge – we will be back!

After that, we mooched up a storm – especially at the Lamb Arcade. Now in terms of my vintage buying, I usually go along the lines of if I like it – I buy it. Holly is incredibly knowledgable about vintage fashion (a true geek). Here are her top tips for buying vintage:

1. Know your labels.

2. Try ANYTHING.

3. Buy what you love but look ahead – invest.

Holly managed to grab herself a vintage shirt and a great handbag . She even managed to find me a vintage Liberty print dress – what a bloody brilliant find!

I think it’s safe to say that we’ll be meeting up again. More than the mooching and the usual vintage/pin-up natter, we had one of those proper discussions about life and it’s good to be able to talk about the heavy stuff as well as the lighter stuff with someone.