Dress you up in my love...

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 'That's the problem when you turn sixty', spouted the husband last week.

'Oh yes?'  I replied with some caution.

'Yours arms get shorter and you can't reach your feet to get your socks on any more'.

Tempted though I was to suggest that it might be the stomach getting in the way, I agreed that getting older wasn't much fun.  In fact, if someone had told me what it would entail, I probably would have said something along the lines of, '...no, you're alright.  I'll stay as I am, thank you'.

As my sixtieth birthday is also this year, I made the momentous decision that I was fed up of the way I look.  The problem with being retired is that your daily dress code becomes very boring.  For me, it seems that jeans, striped t-shirt and walking boots have been my dress code for the past six months, topped off with a jaunty pink bobble hat and various mismatched socks and gloves.

I was out shopping with son number two a month or so ago, and as is the norm for us, the subject turned to clothes.  'Just do it, mum', he said.  So I did.

New hair cut (six inches of fluff no longer residing round my neck wasn't the best decision I ever made in February, but that's what scarves are for) ten pounds gone, and a new love of clothes discovered.

I took myself off to Oxford a couple of weeks ago, and after several stiff talking downs (one from a particularly pretty lilac cardigan) I came home with a new capsule wardrobe, predominately from Zara.

But there were questions I asked myself as I stood in front of each rail...

1.    Is it striped?

2.    Have I got anything similar in my wardrobe?

3.   Do I know how that does up?

4.    Is it black?

As long as I answered 'no' to each of those questions, and they had it in my size, it was hauled into the changing room.  As they only allow you to take in twelve items at a time, there were several trips necessary, and by the end of the morning, the sales assistant and I were on first name turns and had discovered a mutual love of  Tom Grennan.

I just about made it back to the car (my arthritic knees were pleading for a sit down with a cup of tea) and having washed and ironed everything my wardrobe is looking rather lovely.  Scary as hell, but I'm going to be brave and get out there in my new clothes.

Last Saturday, we went to London to celebrate the husband's birthday with all of the kids.  Braving my new trousers, tops and funky trainers, son number two gave me a hug, and said to me, 'well done mum, you look fabulous'.  

The husband is equally thrilled at his trendy new wife, but is slightly concerned that I might 'start on him' at some point.  I keep showing him pictures of skin tight trousers which sit just above the ankle.  The good thing about these is that no socks are necessary with this style apparently.

Well, at least the problem of his too-short arms would disappear...






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