Wardrobe Malfunctions

Just to reassure you all, I have been wearing clothes in all the time I have been absent from this blog.  (Love the way that the Blogger dictionary doesn't recognise the words 'blogger' or 'blog'.  It suggests 'logger' and 'glob'.)  The reason for the lack of sartorial updates is that we are moving house in less than a month.  I've been de-cluttering.

But here I am.  And today we are looking at wardrobe malfunctions.  Let us focus on Trinity Sunday, or for most normal people, Jubilee Sunday.  You know, when the flotilla went down the Thames?  Yes, that Sunday.  The weather gods, noting the miles of bunting nationwide, were alerted to the fact we were planning some kind of large scale open air festivity, and duly obliged with wind and rain.  It wouldn't be England otherwise, would it?

Well, this meant that my planned outfit (the 50s style dress) needed to be supplemented with tights.  I am not good with tights.  Or with any kind of sheer hosiery, to be honest.  I was once given a genuine pair of silk stockings.  I did not make it to the front door without laddering them.  So the morning was fraught with tension.

As you may remember, I was proposing to wear a pair of open-toe tights with my sandals.  I have two pairs of these.  There may be more functions this year requiring such tights, so I knew I needed to be careful.  It is possible to buy 'hosiery gloves', which I imagine are for klutzes like me who can't put tights on without laddering them.  I don't own hosiery gloves, so I improvised with a pair of pop socks.  Actually, we don't call them pop socks any more, do we?  We call them 'knee-highs'.  But you know what I mean.  Carefully, carefully I eased on my pair of open-toe tights, wincing with every tug.  Mission accomplished!  

Every woman reading this knows already what happened next.  That's right.  A quick trip to the loo before leaving for the service, and BANG! Tights exploded as I pulled them back up.  Waistband sheered off.  Beyond remedy.  Buggeration!  Late bell already chiming.  Raced back upstairs, tossed tights drawer contents on bed, forked about, found a pair of 'sandal toe' hold-ups.  Hold-ups are quicker to put on in a hurry, I find.  First one on, no problem.  Second leg...  Buggeration!  Historic ladder up the back which I hadn't spotted.  Bells now fallen silent.  Raced out of house, with my big pink umbrella, reasoning that if anyone spends the Eucharist scrutinising the back of Mrs Chancellor's right leg, they have bigger problems than I do.

The first hymn had started, so I had to wait at the West End while the procession went past.  I pretended not to notice the lay vicars smirking.  It's all very well for them: their cassocks cover any ladders in their stockings.

Pastel Jeans

I must post more clothing hints on this blog.  My good friend Pat the Midwife (can she sew it? yes she can!) came to Lichfield on Sunday and went with me to the cathedral and then stayed for lunch afterwards.  And she totally brilliantly and fabulously gave me a pair of pale pink jeans as a leaving present.  This is all within The Rules.  I say that confidently, because I made The Rules up myself.  The Rules simply state that I may not buy myself any new clothes or accessories during 2012.  

As it happens, I already have a pair of wide-legged pale pink jeans.  In fact, Pat altered them for me because they were too baggy round the waist. This is the jeans curse for hour-glassy gals.  They never fit round the waist if they are snug round the hips.  So she altered them for me and now they are perfect.  Clearly she retained some dim memory of this, and perhaps recalled in the M & S pastel jeans section--panicky and overwhelmed by choice--that I like pale pink.  I do.  But I rather wanted another colour this time.    So I went to M & S in Sutton Coldfield and exchanged them for a lilac pair.

Pat will not be offended, I know, because she left the receipt in the bag on purpose.  In any case, she bought me size 12 long, thinking I'm tall and therefore need long jeans.  Not so.  I have a long back and long neck.  That's why I'm tall.  I don't have long legs.  I would prefer to have long legs, obviously, but I was not consulted, and the long legs went to my sister Ruth instead.  She, however, does not have a neck.  (A comment made light-heartedly some 30 years ago by my father, and which my sister has never forgotten.)

I should probably mention that these are not jeans proper.  They are 'jeggings' ( a hybrid jeans-leggings thing).  They are very tight indeed.  If you have ever worn neoprene knee supports for running, you will be able to imagine what jeggings are like.  To put them on, simply feed your thighs in a wodge at a time with a spatula.  You could probably adapt jeggings for use as a trebuchet.  If you wanted to fire a watermelon from the top of a cathedral, say.  I hope to wear them on Friday with out any high elasticity mishaps if I sit down too abruptly.  I'll let you know how I get on.

What to Wear at Pentecost

Pentecost, or Whit Sunday as we used to call it in the golden days of my childhood, is a fine day to wear red.  Vestments are red on Pentecost Sunday, which I like to think is symbolises the pentecostal fire falling from heaven with the sound of a rushing mighty wind in the second chapter of Acts.  No doubt some liturgical pedant will point out that we wear red on all manner of other high days and holidays as well.  We will leave such people to their amusements.

There's no obligation for the ordinary pew-fillers to wear red, orange or pink, but some of us like to get into the spirit of the thing.  It's a kind of sartorial priesthood of all believers.  While I draw the line at turning up in a chasuble, I took the opportunity to wear my most fiery-coloured shirt.  Here it is: 

You can't really see its full glory, but it's shot silk, and changes colour as it moves.  I wore it with white linen trousers (white for 'Whit').  This shirt is actually the only designer garment I own that was not from a charity shop.  It's by Paul Smith, and I suspect it would now count as vintage.  I was given it in 1997 on the publication of my second novel, by my then editor, Kate Jones.  Those of you who knew Kate, who died in 2008, will know how tickled she'd be to think that I'm still wearing this shirt.  I haven't quite got out of the habit of thinking I must tell Kate that.  I would tell her, for example, that the shirt is now beginning to fall apart, but that I've cunningly mended it with iron-on Vilene penned in with an orange felt-tip.  Except that to tell Kate this kind of thing was to prompt yet another sly burst of generosity.  

Damn, I still miss her.  She was an atheist, but she listened with great good humour to my accounts of the life of faith.  It was Kate who spotted and bought my first novel, a sprawling 600 page MS which wrestled with the mess of belief and doubt.  Sometimes my faith is pretty minimalist thing, resting on not much more that a persistent sense of presence, patchy, but not often completely absent, and never for long.  I sometimes think Kate was right.  But I hope she wasn't.  I hope death was not the end of that long witty, compassionate,  just and creative conversation I hadn't finished with back in 2008.

Make Do and Mend

Last night I altered a dress.  That is how on trend I am.  I am channelling the whole Make Do & Mend vibe.  I am Keeping Calm and Carrying On.  And just to round off this charming retro picture, the dress I altered is the one I'm intending to wear to the Big Lunch in Lichfield to celebrate the Queen's diamond jubilee.  Here it is:

A bit blurred I'm afraid, because I was obliged to take it through the home gym in order to get the whole dress in the shot.  But you get the general idea.  As you can perhaps see, it is a 50s style dress.  My friend Pat the Midwife (can she make it? yes she can!) sewed it for me, using an authentic 50s pattern and fabric we bought for a pound a metre on the Birmingham Rag Market.  The wonderful thing about having a garment made for you is that it actually fits.  Being a bit of an hourglass gal, I can seldom get things that are snug on the waist if they also accommodate the busk (as the lady in the local woolshop always said when we were little).  This has made me resolve--when my year of self-denial is over--to get more clothes tailored especially for me.  Anyone know a friendly seamstress in Liverpool?

Please to notice the exquisite detail of the self fabric belt:

That Pat.  Isn't she clever?  All I have done by way of altering is to shorten it to knee length.  It was originally mid-calf length, and we all know just how frumpy that feels even when it's in fashion.  I will wear it with white shoes.  This ought to demonstrate to the world that my legs are not actually white at all, they are merely deathly pale.  And if I chicken out, I believe there are a couple of pairs of open-toe 'barely there' tights lurking somewhere in the hosiery drawer. I do commend open-toe tights, by the way, for those times when you're wearing open-toe sandals.  Brilliant invention.  

What to Wear When It Turns Warm

After the relentless grey of the last couple of months a strange bright object has been sighted in the sky.  After a flurry of googling, we have identified it as the sun.  Suddenly it's spring.  And it was sudden.  People went out in the morning in winter coats only to look completely foolish by the end of the day.

So.  What should we be wearing in this glorious weather?  That is quite simple for young women to answer.  They will continue to wear their shorts, only now they can leave off the black tights they've been wearing underneath.  Or, if they are idle young women, they can scissor the tights off at upper thigh level without troubling to get undressed.

When you reach an interesting age--and I think 50 must qualify--the wearing of short shorts probably needs to be confined to sporting activities.  But having noted the opaque tights+shorts combo, I will confess that I've contemplated an old pair of jeans and wondered about turning them into cut-offs.  But then I asked myself this one simple question: Do I want my sons to talk to me ever again? 

Which leaves me with a summer clothing dilemma.  My 'When in doubt, wear black' maxim doesn't hold up well here; especially if you're bored to death of wearing dark dismal wintery colours.  The answer, of course, is to wear white.  White trousers with some bracing colour blocking: that is my solution.  A rummage in my trouser drawer revealed a pair of white capri pants I'd completely forgotten about.  I also found a vacuum packed bag of light-coloured clothing lurking under a clothes rail, full of things not seen since the autumn.  It was all rather exciting, like the childhood ritual of opening the trunk full of summer clothes used to be.

One small caveat, however.  Don't wear white trousers when you are chipping 6 years of filth off your cooker prior to moving house.  Or if you do, make sure you team it with a nice long apron.  

While Shepherds Watched on Ilkley Moor

And now, in a welcome break from my narcissistic fashion ramblings, I am turning my attention to hymns.  Hymns and their tunes.  Or rather, hymns which fit to tunes other than their own traditional one.

Ask most churchgoers about hymn-tune replacement and they will be able to tell you that you can sing 'There is a green hill far away' to the tune of 'The House of the Rising Sun.'  They will probably also know that 'While shepherd's watched their flocks by night' goes to 'On Ilkley Moor baht 'at'.  'The angel of the Lord came down (Lord came down)!'  By the same token, you can sing a highly florid version of Ilkley Moor to the tune of 'O for a thousand tongues'. 'Where hast tha be-e-e-een since I-I sa-aw thee? On Ilkley Moor baht 'at, on I-I-I-I-Ilkey Moor baht 'at!'  That was the tune 'Lyngham' rendered into prose, by the way.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Last night, in an idle moment I asked Twitter for more examples.  The result is that I have spent the day wandering around the house singing 'Immortal, invisible God only wise' to The Wombles theme tune.  I was also alerted to the possibility of singing that wedding favourite 'Love divine all love's excelling' to 'O my darling Clementine'.  Ooh! as I typed that, I realised it also goes to 'Now the carnival is over' as well.  

Both those tunes, however, have a slightly solemn church-appropriate ring to them.  They could work in the context of worship.  The same cannot be said of The Wombles.  Therefore for maximum subversive pleasure, the tune's style and associations need to be at odds with the hymn.  My suggestion for 'Love divine' would be 'All the nice girls love a sailor'.  Another high scorer here is the Medieval Latin hymn 'Tantum ergo' to the tune of 'I'm forever blowing bubbles'; along with 'O Jesus I have promised' to The Muppets theme tune.

Traditional hymn tunes are readily interchangeable because they are (usually) in recognisable metres.  The metrical index of a hymn book is a handy resource for the subversively minded.  Anything in common metre  (CM) fits to Ilkley Moor, for example.  This means that if you can identify the metre of a tune, let's say The Archers, you can then look up hymns that share the same metrical structure.  With a spot of shoe-horning--or as musicians like to say 'anacrucis'--'We plough the fields and scatter' (76 76 D and Refrain) fits.  Provided you sing the word 'plough' on the first 'TUM' you'll be fine.  Well, I think so.  I'm currently arguing with one of the lay vicars about this. 'we PLOUGH the FIELDS and SCA-a-tter the GOOD seed O-on the LAND!'  Where's the problem?

The church has been ransacking popular culture for its hymns for centuries.  Did not Bach himself pinch tunes from tavern songs?  (Needs citation, as Wiki says, but I think I heard that somewhere).  Twitter tells me of an Agnus Dei to Billy Joel's 'Just the way you are', indeed, of an entire Billy Joel Mass setting.  Also an Ave Maria to the Eastenders tune.  As a child in Sunday School we sang a chorus to the Match of the Day theme.  It goes on and on.  

Thank you to all the tweeps who provided these ghastly examples.  I would love to tell you all that 'Shine Jesus shine' goes to 'Who let the dogs out'.  But sadly, I don't think it's true.  Even with anacrucis.

The Joy of Plimsolls

When I was growing up my mother had a strict rule concerning plimsolls.  They were for PE only, not for playing in the garden.  Looking back I can understand this.  There were four of us and money was tight.  The kind of white plimsolls we all wore in the late 60s/early 70s wore out quickly if used to climb trees, play on railway lines or scramble onto conveyor belts in the local quarry.  I merely pluck imaginary examples at random, you understand.

Given the choice, I would have lived in my plimsolls.  I was a tomboy.  I wanted to live in jeans as well, but ran into trouble at school over this one, where some teachers wouldn't allow girls to wear trousers.  Is there any surprise that at 50 I am still paying off that deficit?  Here's what I'm wearing today:

This is merely one pair from my plimsoll collection.  I also have a traditional white pair, a shocking pink pair, a purple pair, a navy pair and a silver pair.  None of them is actual genuine Converse.  Most came from the late lamented T. J.Hughes.  

My real anxiety is that David Cameron has delivered the kiss of death to my favourite footwear, just as Jeremy Clarkson killed off Levi 501s. I swore as a teenager that I would never wear crimplene dresses like the old women all seemed to.  Little did I know that last-chance-trendy Tory politicians would transform my own wardrobe choice into something equally frumpy.

Ah, know thyself, Catherine!  You are a 50 year old woman clinging to the sartorial tastes of your childhood.  You are contributing to the climate change that will bring funky coloured plimsolls to the brink of extinction.  There is, however, a quiet satisfaction in the thought that we are driving young people off this patch of sartorial turf.  Next, the hoodie, mwa ha ha!  But low-slung jeans?  They're all yours, dudes.

What to Wear at No Notice

What to wear at no notice?  The answer to this question is almost always going to be 'something black'.  By 'no notice' I'm talking about occasions for which you've had an outfit in mind, and therefore not left much time to get ready in.  And then--horror!  At the last minute you discover that the crucial garment is in the laundry basket or the ironing pile, and your beloved is already standing at the bottom of the stairs calling 'Are you nearly ready?' in that helpful way which instantly solves all clothing crises.

You then dash to your wardrobe, biting back tears of rage, and snatch the nearest black dress.  Next you  rummage through the monstrous tangle of hosiery which is your tights drawer for a pair with no ladders.  These you tug on, hopping round the room, whilst bellowing 'I'M JUST COMING!' to the solicitous enquiries from downstairs.  On goes the dress.  Off comes the dress.  On goes the dress again, right way out.  A burst of angry churning about in jewellery box locates some big silver jewellery.  Squirt of expensive signature scent.  Jam feet in black shoes.  Prod hair.  Snatch nearest brightly coloured pashmina, clomp downstairs.  Compose self.  Off to concert.

The great blessing is that you have had no leisure to be assailed by the conviction you look fat.  I recommend it.    Just make sure your skirt isn't tucked into your knickers, that's all.

How to Work Colour Blocking

The colour blocking trend.  It's big at the moment.  If you see someone walking down the street dressed in bright purple, teamed with orange, or possibly lime green, don't worry, they've done it on purpose: this is colour blocking.

Looking back, I can see I should probably have asked the precentor to put a small notice in last week's service booklet, alerting the cathedral congregation to the colour blocking trend, and informing them of my intention to demonstrate it the following week.  That way we might have avoided any misunderstanding, and people calling out, 'Well we can certainly see you coming this week!'  Ha ha ha!

Here's what I wore: a pair of shocking pink wide-legged silk trousers from East (via a charity shop) with a jade green long sleeved T-shirt, and under this a turquoise vest top.  To be successful, your colour blocks must be vivid and clashing.  Think of it as the reduction ad absurdum of the non-matchy-matchy rule.  Having just read some advice in a colour supplement over breakfast on how to rock this look without ending up dressed like a children's TV presenter, I knew that the secret is to restrict yourself to two colours palettes (unlike the photo above).  I therefore did not wear my red platform wedges.  I wore my tan platform wedges, and a narrow tan belt.  The result was quite startling enough.  'Colour blocking.  It's called COLOUR BLOCKING.  It's a FASHION TREND,' I patiently shouted, as if to deaf foreigners as I left the cathedral.  

My timing was not great, however.  The Lichfield Mysteries were just about to start, and the Close was filling up with actors.  I suspect that a lot of people assumed I was part of the cast of one of the plays.  A large demented parrot from Noah's Ark, perhaps.

What to Wear in May

What to wear in May?  Or more specifically, what to wear in a crap May like this one?  The weather is like November, but somehow we feel an obligation to look a little springlike.  We ought to be in pastels and taupes, oughtn't we?  We should be twinkling down the street in sandals.  But it's too cold and wet.  Thus our emotional dress sense is in tension with our practical dress sense.  Which one wins will depend largely on age and whether we are trying to pull.  And May, of course, is a traditional pulling time.  Spring is when a young man's fancy lightly turns to the thought of love, wrote Tennyson in a politer age.

It is in this cruellest of months (April has been transferred to May for reasons of the weather and the liturgical calendar) I find my New Year resolution being sorely tested.  Common sense dictates that I continue to wear my boots and treggings and to don my extensive black and grey collection in increasingly ingenious ways.  But quite apart from the fact that I'm bored with all that, it feels all wrong to be dressed for winter when the chiff-chaffs are singing and the cherry is in blossom.

So what is the best way forward along this sartorial tightrope?  Here's my solution: skinny jeans and ankle boots, teamed with light coloured tops and a large umbrella.  The ankle boots look less January-ish than knee length boots, and you can tuck skinny jeans into them.  You can't tuck your wide-legged jeans in, as I have observed before.  Wide-legged jeans are usually asking for platform wedges, but it's too cold for that.

But here's the problem: my skinny jeans repertoire is very limited.  I have a dark blue denim pair and a white pair.  But everywhere I turn I see pastel coloured skinny jeans, jewel coloured skinny jeans!

And I covet them.  Ah well.  It wouldn't be much of a New Year's resolution if it didn't cost me a pang now and then, would it?

PS if you are offloading any size 12 skinny jeans in bright or pastel shades, get in touch.

What to Wear on a Walk in the Country

Well, look at that.  I've nearly done 4 months without buying any new clothes or accessories.  Only 8 more months and I can run amok with a credit card in TKMaxx.  Or more likely, the posh charity shops of Alderly Edge, rummaging through the footballers' wives old designer duds.  In my imagination the charity shops of the North West glow like so many Aladdin's caves.  Exploring them is one of the things I'm looking forward to when we move to Liverpool.

But in the meantime, What to Wear on a Walk in the Country?  I ask this because I have recently been on a muddy walk in Shropshire, while tutoring a school's course for the Arvon Foundation.  The experience flushed out a gap in my wardrobe: wellies.  I do not own a pair of wellies.

So I borrowed a pair.  I found them lying about the Main House.  Maybe they are The Arvon Wellies, donned by many a great poet or playwright down the years who happened to have size 7 feet?  They were pretty and floral and very nearly my size.  I wish I'd photographed them for you.  The left boot fitted slightly better than the right, for reasons which became clear when I confidently strode into a deep puddle.  There was a two inch split up the back seam.  But it was a lovely walk.  I saw some cowslips:

And holey wellies were better than ruining my suede boots, which were my only footwear for the whole week.  I tend to pack light.  After all, I'm seeking to impress people by my superlative wordsmithery, not my wardrobe.  It matters not a whit to teenagers what adults wear, anyway.  We are invisible--unless we are their parents and we decide to dance at a party.  One of the girls admired a necklace I wore on Thursday, but that is a rare exception.  To be fair, the necklace draws the eye somewhat.  It's so chunky it could double as nunchucks.

Wellies will not be on my list of clothes to buy in the New Year.  I don't have a welly lifestyle.  This was an emergency.  Normally when I'm out walking I wear walking boots, or trainers.  Or else I wear high heels and book a taxi.

What to Wear When Jogging

Ha!  What to wear when jogging!  For some of you that's a bit like wondering what to wear when turning a pumpkin into a coach-and-four.  It's never going to happen, is it?  Well, never mind, you just sit back on your sofa and eat lard pasties while I continue with this post.

My first hint is that you wear running shoes.  Indeed, it is possible to go running in nothing but trainers, as has been ably demonstrated year on year here in Lichfield during the Buff Run.  The Buff Run used to be engaged in annually by our Choral Scholars, but currently we don't have any.  I believe some of our lay clerks have taken part in the challenge as well, round the cathedral Close in the noddy.  It is generally scheduled in the wee small hours to minimise the chance of running into the dean's wife, and to maximise the opportunity for Dutch courage.  I look forward to learning whether there's a similar tradition in Liverpool cathedral, when I myself shall be the dean's wife, poised to be shocked at the sight of naked young men.  In fact, I shall station myself at my front window with binoculars in order to be shocked properly.

Where was I?

Oh yes.  What to wear while jogging.  The second most important thing is a good sports bra.  In fact, if you have a large chest, it's a good idea to wear two sports bras one on top of the other just to tether everything, especially if you are a woman.  One of the worst problems I've hit with this not buying any new clothes malarky is in the sports bra department.  After a couple of thousand washes the elastic toughens up and is about as flexible as a steel tape measure.  My dears, the chafing!  I've started tucking a sock in the centre front under the band where it rubs raw.  How I suffer for this blog.

For outer wear I have an array of sports gear dating back some dozen years.  Most of it is black.  Much of it has magical wicking properties.  Moisture is simply wicked away! We believe that, don't we?  I also run in special running gloves with special metallic finger and thumb pads which would enable me to use an iPod if I owned one, or was stupid enough to listen to music while out running instead of being constantly on the alert for assassins lurking in the flowering currants like the highly trained martial artist I am.  Yes, I have indeed used my judo skills while out running.  I tripped over a bump in the road and executed an impressive martial arts rolling breakfall outside the cathedral school once.

My final piece of advice is that you don't wear tight lycra compression gear unless you are spectacularly fit (in both senses of the word) or have a good friend who is willing to cut you out of your shorts when you get back home from your run.

What to Wear on Easter Sunday

What to wear on Easter Sunday?  Somehow one instinctively feels the answer is white.  We should sally forth to worship clad like Housman's cherries, 'wearing white for Eastertide'.  This is all very well if it's nice weather.  But if the rain is lashing down and you have muddy paths to negotiate, then white starts to feel like a foolish choice.

In the end I wore two different outfits this Easter.  My first was thrown on in a hurry.  It comprised trackie bottoms, ratty trainers and a big pink cardigan.  I was also wearing my glasses.  My defence here is that it was 4.55am.  And anyway, it was dark and the rest of the congregation was half asleep.  After the Easter Vigil was over nearly 3hrs later, I went home to get showered and changed into my Acting Dean's Wife clothes.

The other instinct when it comes to Easter is the urge to wear something new.  In the old days ladies would wear their new Easter bonnets.  This tradition is gallantly upheld by the lady consorts, who were sporting some fine mother-of-the-bride type millinery this year in Lichfield cathedral.  We got a good look at it as they processed in with the chaps in tricorn hats, gold chains of office and all the civic regalia that comes out on such occasions.

As you know, I'm not in a position to rush out and indulge my passion for new clothes this year.  What a good thing my oldest friend gave me that stunning coat a month or two back!  I wore it with navy wide legged linen trousers (charity shop) and a sage green slink top (charity shop) and...

Ta da!  Pink shoes!  A Christmas gift from the chancellor.  How did he know exactly what I wanted?  So clever of him to glance up and concentrate for 5 seconds while I held my laptop in front of his face, open on the Office website.

So that's my answer: wear whatever makes you feel like rejoicing on Easter Sunday.  'My love, the crucified, hath sprung to life this morrow.'

What to Wear to a Karate Grading

This is fairly obvious: you wear your karate suit.  A karate suit is basically a pair of loose white cotton pyjama things which you can buy from any martial arts shop.  I believe I got mine via Amazon.  The only thing to decide is how much you want to pay, and what size to buy.  Do make sure you buy a karate suit, not a judo suit, which is heavier and thicker.  If you are a novice and still not entirely sure whether you are going to carry on with this mad karate enterprise, then you will want to buy yourself a nice cheap kit.  It will come with a white belt, which is the first colour of belt you will need.

As anyone knows who has ever worn white trousers, white or 'nude' underpants are essential, unless you are something of an exhibitionist.  Personally, I think thongs are unwise, though you are less likely to lose your trousers during karate than judo.  Women and girls can wear a T-shirt.  In judo this has to be white, but as far as I can see, this isn't strictly policed at my karate club.  And that, my friends, is it.  Oh, apart from a good stout sports bra if you are blessed bosom-wise.  No jewellery, no shoes, no socks.  Undies, white pyjamas, T-shirt (women) and a belt.  (If you are sparring, you'll need shin/foot pads and mitts; and a gum-shield if you are under 18.)

Today I went to my second karate grading.  I wore my red belt.  By happy coincidence red is the correct liturgical colour for Palm Sunday.  This was some slight consolation for spending my morning at King Eddie's leisure centre rather than in Lichfield cathedral.  Despite cocking up some of my renraku waza (combination techniques), I managed to pass, so from now on will be allowed to wear a yellow belt.  It will be awarded at my next training session.  Again, by happy chance, this is the correct liturgical colour for Easter.  

Probably if you are going for a higher grade you will have some kind of totemic garment which you will don with trembling fingers as part of your preparation for the ordeal that lies ahead.  Your 'lucky' trousers, your old 1000 wash grey T-shirt.  But I am still dabbling in the shallows of karate and quite blithe about the whole thing. To be honest, after the adrenaline-drenched horror of judo dan gradings, when I faced psychotic teenage girls across the mat and got repeatedly slaughtered, karate gradings--tra la la--hold few terrors for me.  Sssh! Don't tell sensei I said that.

What to Wear to a Wedding

What you wear to a wedding depends on a lot of different variables.  If you aren't the bride then a big whoomfy white dress and veil looks a bit attention-seeking.  Many couples issue guidelines about dress.  They might, for example, stipulate morning suits for gentlemen.  If they are complete control freaks they will even tell you which colour waistcoat they want you to wear, and how much it will cost to hire it from Moss Bros.  Morning suit hire is more than I feel inclined to shell out for a present, so my view is they'll get one or the other.  An entire reception full of blokes in matching morning suits, but no towels or toasters.

Usually the couple are a bit more relaxed.  Most men will wear a lounge suit to a wedding.  No problemo, they think.  I have a suit in the wardrobe which I wore to be Dave's best man 5 years ago.  Still, a wise man will try the suit on a good week before the wedding.  And a very wise man will try it on even if someone says to him 'Aren't you going to try that suit on, darling?'  Because it's a well-known fact that suits can shrink if left hanging too long in a wardrobe.

This kind of masculine wardrobe fiasco is a mere airy nothing compared to the horrors faced by most women as a wedding approaches.  This brings me back to those variables I mentioned earlier.  What you wear depends  not least on how close you are to the happy couple.  If you are the mother of the groom you will approach the whole outfit question in a very different frame of mind from an old college friend.  Sisters of the bride may well end up being a bridesmaid, or Bag of Honour, as it was called in my family.  In this case you will not be able to choose your dress at all.  The best you can hope for is to head off anything disastrously unflattering.

Other variables are more subtle.  Is there going to be an ex-boyfriend there, who needs to be taught what an utter loser he is for no longer going out with you (even if you ditched him)?  Will the wedding be full of people you went to school with (NB start diet 4months in advance)?  Or are you only being invited because you are the vicar's wife (in which case no significant expenditure or effort is called for and you'll be on the  same table as the children and mad aunts)?

Then there's the hat issue to decide.  I used to adore wearing hats before they became de rigeur.  These days I seldom bother, unless I can be sure my hat is bigger than everyone else's put together and all will drop to their knees at my sheer millinery awesomeness.  Plus hats squash my hair.

But here's an oddity about wedding clothes which I've noticed: the no matchy-matchy rule is suspended.  Colour co-ordination is permitted at weddings, indeed, it is positively encouraged.  If you wish to wear salmon pink everything from fascinator to sling-backs, you may do so with impunity.  This is why I allowed myself to wear white trousers, black-and-white patterned top, black-and-white necklace, pink earrings, pink pashmina and pink shoes to a wedding last Saturday.  And I'm not ashamed to say it felt good.

What to Wear on the First Day of Spring

This is the first day of spring.  (Here in the northern hemisphere, obviously.)  Today is the spring equinox, when day and night are of equal length.  What should one wear to mark this happy day?  Look how lovely it is in Lichfield: 

Blue, blue sky over the cathedral, and the weeping willow trees in leaf at the end of Stowe Pool.  I went out for a walk specifically to check whether the May blossom is out yet, with a view to casting a clout.  It doesn't seem to be, so just as well I was still in my winter garb of treggings, boots and jumper.  

But I was also wearing sunglasses.  Yes, sunglasses are what to wear on the first day of spring when it's a lovely day.  Especially if you have blue eyes, like me.  I was once accused of being a poseur for wearing my sunglasses on a cloudy day.  I replied, 'If you have blue eyes you have to take care of them!'  I may possibly have made some kind of grand queeny gesture as I said this.  But it's true: people with light-coloured eyes are more likely to develop cataracts. So look after those baby blues, people.  Wear your sunglasses with pride, even in a thunderstorm.

I glanced about me as I walked and noticed that others seem to think that on the first day of spring you should be wearing shorts.  Everywhere I look at the moment: shorts.  Morning, noon, and night: shorts.  Shorts of all kinds are very fashionable at the moment.  Often they are teamed with woolly tights.  Sometimes they are teamed with nice pins.  Many times, however, they are teamed with legs best kept out of sight.  This may be completely lardist of me, I admit.  

I do own a couple of pairs of shorts, but I only wear them under my judo trousers.  Long years of experimenting have proved that a snug pair of shorts are the best way of anchoring your white T-shirt.  Half your time on the mat as a female judo player is wasted in tucking your T-shirt back in.  If you are wearing shorts this figure goes down to around 10%.  That, my friends, is the only use I have for shorts.  

What to Wear on Mothering Sunday

Over the years I have worn some strange things on Mothering Sunday.  For example, a necklace made of wooden beads from a car seat cover, interspersed with gold plastic buttons and threaded on a long orange bootlace.  Many mothers on Tyneside wore a similar necklace on Mothering Sunday, 1995.  I doubt many of us have worn them since.

My sons are now 20 and 18, and have observed their father closely over the years and learnt that flowers, cards, and special meals are what mothers really like (even though Mum swore blind at the time that the car seat necklace was the most beautiful piece of jewellery in the world and she would keep it forever).  This means that I am free to choose my own outfit and accessories on Mothering Sunday these days.

So: what to wear on Mothering Sunday?  Well, help is on hand from the liturgical calendar if you move in cathedral circles.  Mothering Sunday is also Laetare Sunday, or Refreshment Sunday, the Sunday midway through Lent on which we traditionally lighten our penitential burden.  Lenten purple is softened to rose.  This is only in more rarefied high church circles, you understand.  The kind of place where you have to suck boiled sweets during the mass so your ears don't pop.  I looked on Google images at rose vestments, and there plenty of gorgeous examples, any one of which I'd gladly use to upholster a small ottoman in my new deanery.

Obviously, I am too lay and too low to be prancing about in rose vestments, but I did wear pink.  Pink socks with brown mid-heeled shoes.  I've seen young people doing the sock and heeled shoe thing, so I think we're OK with this, aren't we?  I also had on my high-waisted wide leg 70s style jeans (hence the need for heels), a pink vest top and a pistachio V-necked sweater, the one that so nearly got taken to the charity shop before I knew pastels were big this season.  Over this I wore my big pink cardy-coat.  I spotted several other people in pink in Lichfield cathedral today.  Possibly just coincidence, but it did look rather nice.  Clashed hideously with the little bunches of daffodils that were given out, mind you.

When in Doubt, Wear Black

I was asked, quite rightly, what it was I actually wore at the Grand Unveiling Ceremony of the new dean of Liverpool last week.  Clearly I raised some expectations by calling my last post 'What to Wear in Liverpool'.

It took quite some time to decide, let me tell you.  There were many clothes tried on then tossed pettishly on the floor.  Tears were shed.  Bitter words about stupid New Year's Resolutions were muttered.  I had decided on my outfit a long time in advance.  After all, we'd been keeping the dark secret of the chancellor's new job for 6 weeks until the official Downing Street announcement.  Crown Appointments are like The One Ring.  Gandalf sends you an official letter saying Keep it secret, keep it safe!  Every week the Nazgul come and peer in your window to see if you are on the phone blabbing.  So I had 6 weeks to ponder what to wear.

On the very day of heading off to Liverpool, right before packing, I decided to try it on, just to make sure.  And by some evil hormonal machination, an outfit in which I have looked stunning on any number of occasions suddenly made me look CHUNKY.  This catapulted me into a frenzy of trying-on, until finally I managed to feel happy in a pair of wide-legged jersey trousers, a slinky black top, and my magic black jacket.  Here it is:

It's a Betty Barclay piece, from a charity shop, and I believe I went mad and shelled out £12 for it.  It's made of black cotton and has a cool biker vibe to it, and most important of all, it looks nothing like the kind of thing a dean's wife ought to be wearing.

We all need magic garments that we simply have to put on in order to feel world-conquering.  This jacket is one of mine.  Even viewed through the evil prism of pre-menopausal self-loathing, this jacket is a winner.  Conversely, there are other garments which look fabulous on the hanger, are bang on trend, the right size, colour and price, which tick every imaginable box, but which make you feel like a plate of cold mashed potato when you put them on.  These should be given at once to a sister or dear friend.

What to Wear in Liverpool

DAMN.  I picked the wrong year to give up buying clothes.  What did I say at the outset?  What did I predict would make me abandon my resolve?  I believe I said that losing my entire wardobe in a house fire might do it.  Or some big function deserving of a new outfit.

Huh.

So now the chancellor is going to be the next dean of Liverpool.  This means a HUGE installation service in Liverpool cathedral requiring a shopping spree WORTHY OF MORDORRR, as Saruman almost said in LOTR. 

And horribly, while we were on the M6 yesterday afternoon heading for Liverpool (for the grand unveiling of the new dean this morning), the chancellor's phone rang.  It was his PA to say there was a major fire in cathedral school adjoining our house, and the Fire Brigade wanted to know was anyone at home?  The IT room had gone up in flames.  Nobody was hurt, and the school's evacuation proceedures were impeccable.  I had to ring our son and warn him he wouldn't be allowed into our house when he got in from school.  Five fire engines in the Close.  Our son overheard the precentor say to the dean 'Well, let's hope there's no CRISIS before you go off on sabbatical the day after tomorrow.' 

Well, eventually the fire was brought under control, our son was allowed in to the house (but not out); while the verger who was out of his house was not allowed in.  Lath and plaster walls and timber framed buildings will now always send a shiver through me when I think about them.  There is serious damage to the school building, and great sadness about that, but immense relief that it wasn't any worse. 

And not for one single moment did I think That would have been a cast iron excuse for clothes buying.  Any more than the chancellor thought My bible commentaries! 

But pity me, people.  I'm moving to Merseyside; home, surely, of Britain's smartest women.  Women who are rumoured not even to put out their bins unless they are in heels, make up, and they've done their hair.  I'm going to look like a bag lady.  Just like I predicted back on January 1st.

But hey.  Sad though I'll be to leave Lichfield, I'm going to love Liverpool.  I can feel it in my bones.

How to Wear Pastels

Pastels are huge this season.  This is a bit of a bummer for me, as I don't own much in the way of pastel clothes.  This season is all about sugared almond colours; pale pinks and lemons, baby blues, pistachio.  Apparently, we are not supposed to team these pastels with black, or that will kill the look.  A riot of pastel from top to toe.  Normally I'd solve this by a quick zoom round the charity shops, but alas.  

I own a pair of pale pink jeans. I have a sort of putty coloured long hoodie. If I rootle through the shirt drawer I will probably unearth a pale green vest top.  But that's about it for pastels.  Dammit, I used to have a pale blue long-sleeved T-shirt!  And a pale pistachio V-necked sweater.  But they were culled in the last wardrobe clear-out in autumn 2010.  I thought (when will I learn?) I'll never wear those again.  That phrase is a powerful spell which you can use to manipulate the tides of fashion.  You bundle up and banish your peplum jackets and pussy bow blouses and bang! we are in the midst of a Mrs Thatcher moment.

But here's a happy, happy thing: I had only got as far as bundling up those pastel garments.  They never made it to the charity shop.  I found them today in a carrier bag in what we refer to as 'the en suite', because that's what we were told it would become five and a half years ago when we arrived in Lichfield.  Little by little, as hope dwindled, it became the overflow wardrobe-cum-home gym room.  Interestingly, the precentor was lured here with a similar promise.  Perhaps he still believes that one day he'll have an en suite bathroom and not have to hike quarter of a mile through a freezing house on a winter night when he needs a wee.

Oh.  I've wandered off the subject.  So, to sum up then: I have the pastels after all.  Soon I will construct an outfit of utter confectionery loveliness and get back to you.

Give Me Something New to Wear!

OK, admission time.  Today was the first day when I've thought I'm totally fed up with this not buying new clothes malarky.  I'm bored.  But because I was brought up a Baptist, I'm always alert to the whispers of conscience reminding me that thousands of people know about my New Year's resolution so I can't cheat because I'll be found out.  

Well, the next best option was to wear something I haven't worn for such a long time it has almost passed back into the 'new' category.  The warmer weather is just starting to bring a whole swathe of my wardrobe back into play.  So I had a rummage and here's what I wore:

It's a silk tunic top from a charity shop.  It may be from the M & S Autograph range, but the label was cut out before I even bought it.  Do you like it?  It reminds me of the marbled end papers from old hardback books.  It did have a belt made from the same fabric, but I accidentally left that behind in the shop.  The only thing that saves it from being a shapeless sack on me is the fact that it's cut on the bias.  I wore it with skinny jeans and my dark brown suede desert boots, brown coat and blue pashmina scarf.  This all-too-familiar lapse into matchy-matchy was heightened today by the presence of the chancellor.  He had failed to consult me, and was in jeans and a brown shirt, shoes, fedora and coat.  

Off we sallied to the charity shops of Historic Warwick, which I can never see on the road signs without thinking 'Histarwick Warwick, Historic Woric' and then wasting several minutes failing to come up with another place that has an equally satisfying rhyming adjective.  

I can only hope the chancellor and I didn't look too twee in our matching colour scheme.  The rules of non co-ordination are not so rigorous for men, I suspect--like so many other rules, even in this age of equality.  I have never heard anyone apply 'mutton dressed as lamb' to a bloke, for example.  And don't get me started on women bishops.   

Will you Wear Red, Jenny Jenkins?

'Will you wear red, oh my dear, oh my dear? Will you wear red, Jenny Jenkins?' enquires the traditional American folk song.  To which Jenny replies, 'I won't wear red, it's the colour of my head. I'll buy me a fol-de-roldy toldy toddy seek-a-double, use-a-cause-a-roll-the-find-me. Roll, roll, Jenny Jenkins, roll.'  We learnt that on Singing Together on the radio when I was at Primary School, and I never did master the nonsense bit at the end.  

On the whole, I'm with Jenny Jenkins here.  I seldom wear red.  Not because it's the colour of my head.  Though if I drink too much wine then it's the colour of my face these days, as many ladies at this interesting stage of life will also have discovered.  A bright tomato red has never been one of my best colours.  It tends to make me look a bit washed out.  I need a red that's more at the pink end of the spectrum than the orange.  Think dark red peonies rather than pillar box.

Last Friday, however, was National Wear Red Day for the British Heart Foundation.  I discovered this when I spotted it was trending on Twitter.  At the time I was sitting at my computer in my slobbing about gear, devoid of sartorial inspiration.  Right, I'll have a rummage, I thought.  And I found a pair of bright red plimsolls (sort of fake Converse from the late lamented TJHughes), a bright red 3/4 length sleeve V-necked T-shirt with a sprinkling of sparkly red glass gems down the front.  This was also from TJs.  I bought it a couple of Christmases ago to wear under an ankle length coat dress with astonishing fur trim at neck and cuffs in the manner of Cruella De Vil.  Darling, I LIVE for furs!

I wore this T-shirt on Friday in a more dressed down style, with a pair of slouchy boyfriend jeans.  All through the day I kept mistaking the glittery gems for crumbs scattered on my bosom.  That's peripheral vision for you.  I also wore a red heart-shaped pendant, a fitting tribute to the British Heart Foundation, who do a good job, and at whose boutiques I have found many a bargain over the years.

Cast not a Clout Till May be Out

Contrary to popular belief, 'cast not a clout till May be out' is nothing to do with hitting people.  It is not saying that the Open Season for Punching begins on May 1st.  The 'clout' referred to is 'cloth', or clothing.  Those of you who studied Romeo and Juliet at school may remember that the nurse compares Paris favourably with Romeo: 'Oh, he's a lovely gentleman.  Romeo's a dishclout to him.'  As in dishcloth.

The 'May' referred to is not the month, either.  It's the may blossom, or hawthorn.  So the saying means, don't start flinging the layers off until the hawthorn blossom is out.  These days this tend to be April, or earlier.  It's not out yet.  The wild plum is in bud, and that's usually the first to burst into blossom in England.  Another couple of days like today, and the hedgerows will be sugared with pink and white, and our hearts can unclench.  

I took a walk round Lichfield's Stowe Pool today, and found that I could believe in spring.

A blue true dream of sky, but no leaping greenly spirits of trees yet.  The weeping willows are golden on the far side of the pool, as you can see.  But it was so warm!  I saw a lass in sandals.  People were peeling off coats and jumpers.  I was in my customary winter wear of treggings, boots and big cardigan and I was regretting my merino wool base layer.  Maybe with global warming we'll have to rewrite the old saying: 'Do not remove your thermals until the wild plum is in blossom.'  Nah, it doesn't have the same ring, does it?

What to Wear in Lent

What To Wear In Lent.  That sounds a bit like the title of a Ladybird Book. And what is the answer?  Sack cloth and ashes?  Purple?  Smudge of ash?  Unfortunately, Lent is not all about denying yourself treats, or I'd be feeling a bit smug.  After all, I've given up buying myself new clothes all year, let alone for Lent.  That's Iron Woman triathlon treat-denial that is, not just a footling little marathon.

Today I'm wearing black.  Readers of this blog will know not to read any significance into that choice.  I wear black roughly four days in seven.  In the winter, that is.  In the summer I wear a lot of white.  There's something to look forward to.  Black is smart, black is slimming, black is the default setting.  It is also traditionally the colour of mourning.  And I am mourning, as it happens.  An old friend died yesterday.  I'm guessing she'd prefer me to be in vibrant colours.  That would be a better celebration of her life.  But no, I'm in black, feeling bleak, wishing I could have gone across to the cathedral this evening to be ashed.  To hear the echoes of Allegri's Miserere chasing down the nave.  To remember that I am dust and to dust I will return.  

This is more what Lent is about.  One day it will be summer.  One day I will be wearing white.  I know this.  But there's a journey to be done first.  There's no fast forward to Easter.  

DAY 50--Clothes Parcels (ii)

Woo hoo!  I have received my first clothes parcel!  Well, perhaps one garment doesn't quite count as a parcel, but I'm delighted with it.  I was tipped off in advance by my oldest friend (we met when we were 6) that she'd be visiting and bringing a clothes parcel.  Socks, I thought.  She's read my blog and she's bought me a pack of sports socks.  How kind.  

But no!  Here's what she gave me:

That is one LOUD coat.  Roses that size are normally seen on carpets.  But then, I'm a fairly loud sort of personality.  Never knowingly understated.  It's by Ann Louise Roswald, and I think it's made of raw silk, but I can't see a care label anywhere.  Bound to be dry clean only.  On this rare occasion I shall take that seriously, as it looks hand dyed.  It's also a perfect fit, and that might well be jeopardised by flinging it in the washing machine.  

When am I going to wear it?  As it turns out, evensong this afternoon might have been a good contender.  Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester were in the cathedral for our celebration of the Queen's Accession.  A good deal of fine millinery and Ascottery was on display; as well as the usual parade of uniforms, frills, ruffles and bling that get dusted off for civic occasions.  Fortunately I was in a skirt and little tweed jacket not jeans.  But the fab new coat would have been even better.  Never mind, I shall save it.  One of my concerns at the beginning of this year was the unexpected posh do requiring an entire new outfit which I'd be unable to buy.  Now I have something in reserve.  Hoorah for clothes parcels and old friends! 

Here's the designer's website: http://www.annlouiseroswald.com/index.html

DAYS 45-49--What to Wear on a Mini-Break

What to wear on a mini-break?  Oh dear, oh dear!  This subject can occupy a woman's mind for several weeks as she mentally packs and unpacks, buys new clothes, has a brainwave which requires the buying of yet more new clothes, then remembers the whole holiday capsule wardrobe concept, in which you take a small number of key garments and mix and match them in such a way as to create twenty different looks, and regretfully discards half the new clothes.

I once passed a woman in the street agonising out loud about packing for holiday.  'I thought if I took the smaller suitcase, and wore my boots, then I'd only need a pair of shoes for the evening, so I'd have room for the cords as well as the jeans...'  On and on she rambled, with her husband making the occasional noise here and there which implied assent.  Memo to self: never try and get a man on board about clothes packing, interior design, home made jam or trips to IKEA.  He's not really listening, he's thinking, 'If Reknapp takes the England job on part-time initially, then...'  

To be honest, it probably doesn't much matter what you take with you on a mini break.  A bunch of nice clothes, basically.  Don't fret, you'll be fine, provided you've got a) a pair of shoes/boots you can walk miles in, and b) something lacy (if you are going with a companion whose tastes veer in the lacy direction).  Apart from that, the only essential for a stay in a hotel is earplugs.  Never, never book into a hotel without them.  You cannot know in advance how thin the walls are and how noisy the neighbours.

The chancellor and I have just had a couple of pleasant days in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  We were staying in Jesmond, which is pretty much wall-to-wall student accommodation as far as I can see.  There are a string of hotels along one of the main streets.  They all have bars, and in the evenings this is where the students like to gather.  Hence the need for earplugs.  It is one thing to overhear the exotic street drama of Bologna being played out under your window; quite another to be kept awake by Daisy or Freddie asserting (in the tones of astonished uncertainty which are currently fashionable), 'I hate washing machines? I LITERALLY hate them?'

Back in the early 90s we lived in Gateshead.  It was odd to be back on the South bank of the Tyne enjoying the stunning views from the Sage, built on what was the Saltmeadows Estate in our parish.  Its inhabitants were just being rehoused prior to the estate's demolition when we left.  Back then the Baltic was still an empty flour mill, the Angel of the North was brand new.  I stood and looked across the Tyne and it felt as though I'd never lived there at all.  

DAY 44--Supermarket Clothes

Today I'm wearing mostly black.  Black is supposed be a terribly draining colour for the mature woman to wear.  But it is also meant to be immensely slimming.  So the answer, clearly, is to wear black, but add a rose pink scarf twined about your crêpey neck to lend a rosy glow to your complexion.

Something you learn when you are wearing black is just how many shades of black there are.  Bluey black, browny black, greeny black and by far the most common shade of black--charcoal grey.  This is black cotton after you've washed it a dozen times.  You still think of them as your 'black jeans' and 'black leggings', but they aren't really, are they?  Even if you devoutly launder them in washing powder for colours.  But who cares?  They're black enough.

So I'm wearing my black-enough leggings with a large long black cowl-neck jumper-tunic thing.  The label says 'TU', which means it came originally from Sainsbury's.  I can't help feeling that's a bit over-familiar.  It should be 'VOUS'.  After all, (as iPhone Siri says when you say 'I love you, Siri') you hardly know me, big black jumper-tunic from Sainsbury's.  I have now reached the age where I am addressed as 'Madame' in France.  This surely entitles me to the same degree of respect from supermarket clothes?

On the whole, I don't buy supermarket clothes, even from charity shops.  Sheer snobbery, I admit.  I've frequently gone through this thought process: Ooh, that's nice! Oh. George and put it back on the rack.  I'm not quite sure why I have this prejudice.  It's possibly because I feel a vague hostility to supermarkets in general.  The way they bombard you with so much choice.  Their secret plan to round up all the merchandise in the universe and put it under one roof, then hold you captive until you've bought it all.  They want us to buy supermarket everything. Bread, insurance, fruit, meat, garden equipment, pharmacy, dentistry, jumpers, weddings, pots and pans, DVDs, shampoo, tractors, foreign holidays, muffins, babies, the moon.  Every  little helps!

Oh shut UP, and leave me alone, supermarkets.

This is why I shop at Lidl, mostly.  It's the closest the supermarket world gets to a charity shop.  You never quite know what you're going to find there.

DAY 43--The Leather Biker Jacket

Well, the velvet jacket was snapped up within 40mins of my tweeting about it.  That 40mins was long enough for me to picture people frowning in polite disdain at the thought of accepting a third hand jacket from me.  I was particularly pleased that it was bagged by a young person.  What greater accolade could be bestowed on a 50 year old, than that someone young enough to be her daughter (?granddaughter? Oh, banish that monstrous thought!) sees potential merit and stylishness in her wardrobe?  She tells me she will be handing on a Dorothy Perkins skirt to a skinnier friend.  There.  A nice virtuous chain has been established.

Today I've been wearing my biker jacket.  I was having another go at the long-tailed shirt look, and I believe I pulled it off rather better today.  The reason for today's look was the urge to wear a hat.  Well, not some much urge to wear a hat as urge not to wash my hair.  The hat in question is a sort of peaked beret, which has a slight steamer captain vibe going on.  It works well with the leather jacket.  I teamed it with pockets stuffed with tissues and cough sweets and sat rather glumly through the 10.30 service.  I hate February.

DAY 42--Free Velvet Jacket

All right then.  You obviously like the whole clothes parcel/clothes swap idea.  So who'd like a free black long-line velvet jacket, then?  It's Dorothy Perkins, size 12, but would fit size 14 I reckon.  I bought it in a charity shop, and then a year later I mistakenly bought a near identical one in another charity shop.  I don't know about your lifestyle, but mine doesn't require me to have two velvet jackets, one to wear and one at the drycleaner's.

Here it is:

If you are a bit of a female dandy, this is the jacket for you.  It works well with jeans and boots.  (Sorry: it does not work well on a short-arse, this is a tall gal's garment)  If you'd like it, then let me know, either by leaving a comment below, or by tweeting me, and I'll post it to you.  There is one condition: you must agree to pass on one garment of your own, and tell me about it.  I know they say you shouldn't give gifts with strings attached, but this is patently nonsense.  Guitars, kites, helium balloons and yo-yos should all be given with strings attached, so I make no apology.

I have a pretty extensive collection of jackets that work well in the evening and make jeans look dressy.  Besides the black velvet one I have a black pinstriped velvet one, a teal shot satin one, a black satin jacquard one, a silvery jacquard one (which gives me a faint qualm I look like Cherie Blair in it), a tuxedo style one and finally, an ivory silk tweed one.   I also have several other jackets that are more casual.  Yes, I have too many jackets.  I have too many clothes.  I do not need to buy any new clothes.   I do not need to buy new clothes.  

Tonight I'm going to a concert in the cathedral and I shall wear the teal jacket.  It's the exact colour and sheen of a mallard drake's head.  Gorgeous.  I'll wear it with black everything.  All I shall do is remove the large jumper I'm wearing at the moment and shrug on my jacket.  Ready in a moment.  This is the brilliant thing about dressy jackets.  I commend them to you.

So get in touch if there's a velvet jacket-shaped hole in your life.  And pick out something of your own to pass on.  Ooh!  This could turn into one of those chain letter things. Within weeks you will receive 200 garments from all over the world! NOBODY HAS BROKEN THE CHAIN YET! 

DAY 41--Clothes Parcels

When I was growing up, there were few thrills to match the arrival of a large parcel of hand-me-downs from cousins, or from friends of my mother who had older girls.  (We didn't have a telly.)  Once we were sent a batch of clothes from a Canadian girl called Jane.  Clothes from abroad!  I remember a party frock, a pale pink gauze shift with long sleeves and ruffles down the  front and at the cuffs.  I adored it (although it was scratchy).  And that brown fake fur coat, with a belt and shiny plastic brown leather on the outside!  How I loved wearing that (although it creaked when I moved).  These were clothes which nobody else in the village had.  Jane from Canada, if you are reading this, THANK YOU.  You have no idea how impossibly glamorous your cast-offs were to us, back in 1970, in Pitstone, Buckinghamshire. 

Do people still send clothes parcels?  Maybe your church or favourite charity collects clothes to send to impoverished communities in Africa.  But to send them to your peers smacks of charity in the Victorian sense.  The kind of charity that the deserving poor were too proud to accept.  It was always the poor relations who are in receipt of clothes parcels.  Or the poor settlers in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.  Remember how the pastor gave Laura a little fur cape and muff one Christmas which some rich little girl back in the East had grown out of?  And how it was prettier than Nellie Olsen's fur cape?  Three cheers, because she was a right cow, that Nellie Olsen.

The obvious exception here is maternity clothes.  We hand these on because we are so heartily sick of them after the last 6 months of pregnancy that we never wish to see them again.  Pregnant women accept them because they resent having to shell out for a new wardrobe they will only need while pregnant.  The other exception is baby clothes.  Which first time mum has not been in receipt of a bin liner full of clapped-out babygrows from some harassed but well-meaning mother-of-three?  The first-timer is inclined to turn up her nose.  Only the very best, the very newest and cutest of teeny-tiny clothes for her newborn, she thinks.  This is because the phenomenon of the Exploding Nappy of Doom has yet to impinge upon her consciousness.

But we don't send one another parcels of ordinary clothes.  We give the clothes to the charity shop, for fear that a parcel might appear insulting in some way.  It might look like a criticism of the friend's dress sense, or worse, she might think you're saying 'Hey, I've lost loads of weight! Want my old clothes, fatty?'

The reason I'm discussing this today is because earlier this week I sent a friend a pair of black boots.  (The student of this blog will be aware that I am hardly bootless as a result.)  They arrived this morning and she's delighted with them.  I think they cheered her up in the midst of this gloomy February.  Unless she's hiding it very well, she wasn't a bit insulted.  And nor would I be by a well-chosen gift of second hand clothes/footwear/accessories.  So I will bear that in mind in future when I'm about to pack up a load of stuff for the charity shop.  I commend this practice to you all.  Especially if you are my size and have lots of designer clothes you are getting tired of.

DAY 40--Fake Fur

Confessions time: I have an inner Cruella De Vil.  When my sons were small enough to be beguiled by Walt Disney videos, 101 Dalmatians was a firm favourite.  Inevitably, I ended up watching it with them a few thousand times.  Secretly I was rooting for Cruella.  She was such a fabulous character, wasn't she?  Anita was such a drip in comparison. Remember Cruella's best line? 'I live for furs. I worship furs! After all, is there a woman in all this wretched world who doesn't?' 

Obviously we all know we can't say that any more.  We can only think it very very quietly, then repent afterwards if we have a Nonconformist upbringing.  The wearing of animal parts reached its apogee in the Victorian era, when hats were festooned with whole birds, fur stoles showcased the taxidermist's art, beetle shells shimmered on evening capes and butterfly wings gleamed in necklaces.  These days we can wear leather and sheepskin without getting pig's blood hurled at us in public.  Maybe a spot of rabbit fur trimming can be tolerated.  Although when the chancellor was a curate, he was once accosted from the pulpit by an angry Methodist minister.  She pointed and declaimed: 'That man there is wearing RABBIT FUR on his academic hood!'  I forget what the sermon was about now.  It was probably in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Well, the reason for this subject today is the fake fur gilet I'm wearing.  No rabbits or mink suffered in its production.  However, I bought it from Primark, so I expect some poor human or other suffered in a dismal sweatshop.  How else could it have been so cheap?  This being England, people are less churned up by that thought.  Ever noticed the bins in supermarkets where you can donate tins of cat and dog food?  There's never one where you can donate tins to homeless people.  As I said in an earlier blog, I no longer shop at Primark.  Somebody somewhere is not being paid a living wage.  The same is probably true of high end fashion, but I never buy that, so my boycotting posh shops would have zero impact.

My fake fur gilet is nice and warm.  But oh, it's not as nice as real fur would be.  Have you ever plunged your hands into the sleek depths of a real fur coat?  I once bought a real fox fur, complete with little dangling paws and accusing glass eyes.  I got it in a vintage clothes shop because I was going to a Murder Mystery party as a Russian countess.  It later emerged that I was an imposter.  In fact, I was a human cannon ball.  But by then I'd bought the real fox fur.  I no longer have it, you'll be relieved to hear.  It got infested with carpet beetles, so I put it in the wheelie bin, closing the lid forever on those reproachful glass eyes.

No, it is not right to ransack the natural world and deck ourselves in the spoils.  Wearing rare animal fur is only the crassest form of this, I'm afraid.  But oh...

DAY 39--Cheap Jewellery

This, I hope, is a timely post; coming as it does ahead of Valentine's Day.  It may help to steer chaps away from one of the top 10 worst Valentine's Day gifts--cheap jewellery.  I can't help thinking that the people who compiled this list on the internet were a bunch of innocents.  Cheap jewellery? stuffed toys?  What about razor blade stuffed gateau? A dead kitten?  The clap?  But perhaps this is just me, the novelist, dreaming up worst case scenarios as usual.

I am actually a big fan of cheap jewellery, provided it's stylish cheap jewellery.  Diamonds are a girls best friend, true.  But only in the sense that you can flog them and buy tons of other stuff that you actually prefer.  I have never hankered after diamonds for themselves.  Here's the assortment of cheap jewellery I'm sporting today:

I took this photo myself as you can probably tell.  It was the second attempt.  The first unaccountably gave me several chins.  The green and purplish seed pod necklaces were given me by the chancellor.  He bought them on a trip to our partner diocese of Matlosane in South Africa.  I wear them with pride.  The other wooden bead necklace (the one with a big hoop) came from Internationale, and I fear faces may have been ground in its production.  I wear it with shame. You can also just glimpse a more delicate bronze bead necklace, which I believe came from Accessorise  a few hundred years ago.  It has matching earrings.  I know, tsk tsk, matchy-matchy.  There's actually quite a bit of brown-purple-green coordinating going on in today's outfit if I'm honest.

A small girl once asked me (when I was in a similar tangle of beads) why I was wearing three necklaces.  I replied, 'A girl cannot have too many necklaces.'  She seemed to absorb this wisdom, and perhaps she will live her life by it.  You can tell small children anything.  I spent a lot of my time trying not to lie too egregiously to my boys when they were little.  My younger son has never forgiven me for telling him that vanilla pods were dried tarantula's legs.  But he loves me anyway.