sausages big and small

i’m eating a rice cake and i’m a bit cross. for one thing, my diet has so far resulted in me gaining weight. i think this might be due to a visit to centre parcs at the end of week one and a three day visit from old friends at the end of week two. my ability (and desire) to diet when with friends is negligible. i may say “i’ll pass on the croissant” only to follow it up with “and opt for the pain au chocolate”. no pork chop; just fourteen sausages. etc. one friend did comment on how fast i could eat a sausage straight from the barbeque which i found mildly discomfiting from a number of perspectives; however i reminded that it’s due to having to time-manage on such a regular basis.

i’m also cross because in my lunch break i couldn’t exchange a top i’d bought in french connection for a gift card. i could have an exchange note but not a gift card. i offered to use my exchange note to buy a gift card but this also isn’t allowed. i suggested i bought a non-sale item with my exchange note, exchanged it for a refund then purchased a gift card (pulling all the process options out: i know my trade) and they said no. the till would KNOW what i’d paid with and only offer that in exchange. so once you have an exchange note it’s pretty hard to do anything other than buy more french connection items: something which is hard if your bottom seems to fit a size 14 but your leg length is more like a 10. don’t i sound scrummy?

the offending returnable item looked great in the shop on a different lunch break: a navy satin under dress with a bat-winged long, thin , floaty but gathered at the bottom top/dress. top/dress as fashion currently seems to have drawn a line under “definite” clothing description in exchange for no holes being barred on the option front. use it as a pair of pants or an attractive hat. wear it with jeans, or leggings, or jeggings, or why not just wear nothing at all under it? and show off your hat-pants? a dress madam? we don’t do dresses anymore. would you mind just trying on this bag instead? i think it would nice with a pair of harem pants pulled up to the knee, then you can wear these strappy shoe/glove combos underneath. when you stand on your head you look just the same. it’s great; and have you seen the hat-pants?

so in the shop the top/dress looked great that day: i think my hair was looking nice which makes all the difference. the lights were low as it was raining (again) and i looked a bit mystical; a bit on trend but classical too. i can be trendy, please call me wendy. but i also like to be know as ms and am hugely capable and sophisticated. and could you tell i have two children? i thought not.

when i got home it didn’t look quite the same. it looked more like someone had pulled a cord along the hem of the top/dress making it blatantly apparent that my bottom couldn’t escape. the bat wings looked more terrifying than ethereal and the top part looked more or less like a purple poncho which i’d lost my arms in. gone was the look and in was the reality. i would lose my children in the top/dress while trying to cuddle them, the satin underdress gaped at the boob and i wasn’t sure quite what i would wear on my legs given the endless options.

so i bought it back. today was a less good hair day and while i tried on various other options in the changing room i was accompanied by two different women doing lunch break shopping (we were in the open disabled access changing room; all the better for bottom humiliation). one tried on a 10 dress, then requested an 8, then asked me how i thought it looked. i honestly told her it looked great; she showed me how it gaped at the boob though; oh what a dilemma. she then looked sympathetically at me and said how much she hated shopping for jeans too. joy. she was replaced by a skinny banking ( i know because she told me) women who bought in a tight dress in three sizes. i think they were 6, 8 and 10. what was really nice was that she too wanted an opinion. she wanted to know if the dress looked too tight and tarty. honestly; the women was a twiglet. i asked if it felt too tight. she said it didn’t and i said it was meant to be a structured fitted dress, but it didn’t look as if it was stretching anywhere. she told me she had tried on the bigger one but it was a big baggy. bear in mind i’m still hear in my oversize jeans. i reassured her it didn’t look tarty; she said she worked in a bank so definitely didn’t want to look tarty, i asked if she had a jacket……………..jeeeeeeeeeesus! i just wanted something to look nice on my bottom. i didn’t want tiny women who’d passed out of the tiny-sausage sausage factory asking me to reassure them about their tinyness. i put my cagoule back on; over my work trousers and flat shoes because i’ve got a VERY SORE VERRUCA and felt like the least desirable women in the actual physical world and marched to the counter only to be told i had to buy something in the shop to get my money back. and hence the credit note saga began.

too much ranting? too much sausage probably. so i’m munching on the rice cakes, hobbling in my flatties, spotty with my period and have to find something excellent to wear this weekend for a family party. good. i’ll crack on and get to it.