Most women will know the feeling. If it looks good then why not wear it again and again?

So that's just what the Duchess of Cornwall did on a public engagement to mark her 61st birthday on Thursday.

Fresh from its successful first outing to mark her 60th last July, Camilla dusted off her chic Anna Valentine couture skirt and jacket for a visit to an allotment in London's St James's Park .

The Duchess of Cornwall celebrated her birthday in London's St James's Park today and, right, dressed in the same outfit during her 60th festivities last year

Even her shoes - low heeled beige LK Bennett courts - watch, bracelet and flower-spray brooch were identical to the previous year, proving that when it comes to fashion, she is not adverse to following her husband's motto: recycle, recycle, recycle.

Going to an allotment might not be high on everyone's birthday wish list.

Indeed while most women get flowers or chocolates on their special day - or perhaps a pretty pink bag from some snazzy designer store - for the Duchess it was a cabbage.

Not any old cabbage, mind you. For a member of the Royal Family only a giant green Durham Early would do.

But there was no getting away from the fact that the present in her hands was still an oversized garden vegetable.

Fortunately Camilla was able to put on one of those 'thank you so much - it's what I have always wanted' smiles perfected by the Royal Family.

And later she received more typical celebratory fare including a hand-made card from a group of schoolchildren and an organic carrot cake which she gamely cut with a trowel before using her finger to scrape off a morsel of cream-cheese icing and popping it into her mouth.

Camilla tastes the rewards of her cutting efforts after slicing through an organic carrot cake with a garden trowel

Accompanied by her husband, Prince Charles, Camilla also enjoyed a tour around the 1940s-themed Dig For Victory allotment, a joint project between The Royal Parks and the Cabinet War Rooms, to show how easy it is to grow your own fruit and vegetables even in the heart of a city.

The project is entirely staffed by volunteers, many of whom are local schoolchildren, who have turned their hands to crops including potatoes, carrots, cabbages, onions, marrows, courgettes and beetroot.

Both Charles and Camilla are keen gardeners and looked animated as they toured the site - to which entry is free - with the prince revealing that he often tends his own vegetable patch at Clarence House, his London residence.

Faced with her birthday cabbage, Camilla cheerfully quipped: 'Oh my goodness me, look at that. It's a big one.'

The Duchess of Cornwall was presented with gifts, including a giant cabbage, during a visit to the Organic Allotment in St James's Park today

Like many women she looked slightly embarrassed by stream of well-wishers making constant references to her age, but thanked a group of children from the St Vincent de Paul Primary School in Westminster who sang happy birthday and gave her a card and a trug of freshly-picked vegetables.

After an impromptu walkabout the couple headed back off through the park on foot to their apartment at Clarence House some 400 yards away, leaving groups of disbelieving in tourists in their wake - many of whom simply refused to believe that the heir to the throne and his wife had just tripped past.

Royal sources said the Duchess planned a more traditional celebration later in the evening - a romantic dinner a deux with her husband at Highgrove, their country home - but declined to reveal whether the prince's gift had been animal, vegetable or mineral.

'The only carrots he would have given her would have been on a piece of jewellery,' joked one.

Camilla seems to have drawn inspiration from the characters of The Good Life