THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL

Contrary to the old song, it is the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me.  Five years is not long enough to get to the end of what this city has to offer.  But hold onto your mitres, everyone: we’re off to across the Peaks, when the dean of Liverpool becomes the next bishop of Sheffield.  I'll let other commentators navigate a path through this complex terrain.  I need a whole novel for that kind of thing. Instead, I will sing a little love song to this mad city I currently live in.  Five years is not long, but it's long enough to start feeling at home.  Long enough to put down roots, and feel the twang as they are pulled up. 

Before we moved here, I’d never lived in the North West.  I’ve spent a lot of my adult life in the North East and then the West Midlands, and it took a while to get used to the constant sense that the coast was on the wrong side of me.  I arrived here completely ignorant, to be honest.  I’d only ever visited Liverpool once, on one of those I-am-an-idiot trips to renew a passport at short notice.  But I hadn’t lived here long before I realised this was my kind of city.  I’ve probably gone native by now.  If you’re interested in seeing my avada kedavra stare, simply make a fatuous crack about Scousers, shell suits and car theft.

In some ways, I discovered that I fitted in from the start.  While my sons were growing up I committed many maternal crimes, but chief among them were ‘talking to strangers in shops’ and ‘trying to be funny’.  Liverpool was an emotional homecoming.  Talking in shops is normal, and everyone’s a comedian.

Liverpool is also a wildly glamorous city.  And here, again, (as someone who secretly thinks you can’t have too many feather boas) I felt instantly I was in the right place.  In a humble way, of course.  I have much to learn.  Fortunately, there are always people on hand to offer style advice in Liverpool.  Recently I ordered a pair of shoes online, and went to collect them from Liverpool One.  I believe every single person in the store, staff and customers alike, told me they were fabulous and a bargain and I should definitely buy them.  I sometimes wonder, though, if my fashion sense is now permanently skewed.  I can get on a train in Liverpool Lime St feeling woefully underdressed, and arrive in London (where a black North Face anorak is a flashy statement) looking like I’ve tried too hard. 

Liverpool’s friendliness is legendary, but the city also topped the Travelodge survey on random acts of kindness in the UK.  Kindness.  I prefer kindness to almost anything.  Holding doors open, smiling at strangers, letting people go ahead in supermarket queues.  These are all common pracitices round here.  As a runner and a pedestrian, I’ve often noticed the kindness of drivers waving me across side roads, and anticipating my zebra crossing use.  There is one quirk of Liverpool driving that sometimes catches non-locals out at traffic lights.  It’s not quite as simple as blatantly driving through a red light, but there’s a consensus that if you actually see it turn red as you approach, it doesn’t count.

So that’s been my Liverpool home for nearly five years.  I've lost count of the number of times I've thought 'What on EARTH is going on here?' and been forced to shrug and conclude 'It's Liverpool.'  Honestly, you’re a bit mad, you lot.  But I love you.  With your cathedral to spare, and your incredibly bare statue on the old Lewis’s building.  The docks, China Town, the museums, libraries, galleries, theatres, shops, the Phil, the football stadia.  I'll miss your quirky coffee shops and fabulous restaurants, your banter, your high heels and Velcro rollers, your purple wheelie bins, not forgetting the late lamented yellow duckmobile.  I love your churches and community projects and foodbanks, your tireless fight for justice, and the way you look out for people.  

I know I have it in me to love other places.  I’m looking forward to adding Sheffield to the list of great cities I can call home. I've already caught myself wondering whether I should commission Pete a pectoral cross made from upcycled vintage cutlery. (Maybe not.  He'd be forever getting it taken off him at airport security.)  

All shall be well.  Right now, there’s no denying: the leaving of Liverpool is going to grieve me. But at the end of the long pilgrimage, I may find those things I've loved and lost have all been treasured up.  I may reach the eternal city and find it has a Scouse Quarter.

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.