The year of being sixty two: the pleasures of clothes
I like clothes but I don't like shopping. When I was working and needed business suits and formal evening clothes I used to shop once or twice a year. I would take a day off work and make a beeline for a particular shop or small group of shops. A new suit, with both trousers and a skirt, tops to go with it in interesting colours and silky materials, shoes and boots, a new dress to wear for smart dinners: everything had to go with everything else. I much preferred to do this shopping on my own. A friend came along with me one year and was exasperated by the way, in her terms, I wouldn't "look at things properly". "You shop like a man" she said crossly. Certainly I don't like spending a long time thinking about it and looking at lots of alternatives. It was important to look good and to get it right but in many ways it was like shopping for expensive school uniform. Nowadays I can wear what I like. Mostly, living up a hill in the middle of nowhe