SHOPPING... IN DESPERATION!

Believe me, female clothing can be very uncomfortable at times. I’ve noticed this more as I got older and spent more time sitting down. By the end of the day everything gets tighter. It must be that our clothing shrinks as the day draws to a close, I mean it can’t possibly be that our bodies spread. Can it? A few months ago I began to suffer from too much tightness around the middle. The cause? Skirt waistbands with buttons that dig into my back, tight ‘tights’ or rather the elastic that holds them up, not to mention bones in bras. Everything is fine all day, it’s just in the evening I begin to suffer. It was painfully obvious that action had to be taken.

I’m not a lover of trousers, they always make me feel so unfeminine, but it crossed my mind that I should try and overcome my dislike and spend the coming winter wearing them. This, of course, raised another point. I hadn’t enough pairs of trousers to vary the daily attempts at fashionable attire. There was nothing for it, I had to go shopping.

It was great fun trying on the different styles of trousers, cords, linens, but they were mostly black or navy. I told the assistant I needed colour. That surprised her a little, she probably thought I was one of this little old ladies who always wear black. Wrong. Colour is my thing. Black makes me look like death and I ain’t there yet, thank you very much.

Assistant lady goes hunting and comes back with three items: a super pair of tailored grey which would go with any colour I chose to wear with it, a pair of maroon cords, which clung where they touched but which would ‘give’ in time’, and a pair of pebble coloured cords. I tried everything on before dismissing the maroon on the grounds of feminine pride and putting the pebble on one side for second thoughts. The grey was a must buy item which I later did. So, back to the pebble colour. What to do? Young assistant had a brainwave and called in an older colleague to give her opinion. Ah, that’s more like it, I thought, a woman who understands and knows what she’s talking about.

New lady, known as Lily, quite liked the pebble cords so I wondered why she hesitated. Then she blurted out, ‘have you tried jeans? Jeans? Did she mean DENIM jeans? Yes she did! Lily told me she had several pairs (I later learned that she was a mere 68) and wouldn’t be without them. ‘Go on,’ she pushed, ‘try some on,’ and promptly dashed out to collect a couple. Whilst inwardly pooh-poohing the idea of ever wearing jeans, I went along with the idea of trying them on if only to prove a point. ‘Much better than the cords,’ said Lily, who went on to explain that she even wore jeans for evenings out. Apparently they team rather well with smart tops and jackets.

I am now the proud possessor of a great pair of dressy grey trousers as well as the most comfortable pair of trousers ever designed for an elderly woman. Jeans! Couldn’t wait to try them with all my lovely jackets and tops so whilst still in the store I bought a couple of tops to go with them. Now I’m wondering if one pair of jeans is enough! And those colourful sneakers would look good with jeans, don’t you think?