I having been trying most of my life to understand the cardigan as a piece of clothing. I see people wearing them and think …yeh! Cool! But as hard as I try I have only ever had one cardigan in my life that has been a long standing, useful and effective piece of clothing. It is a thin black ‘in-wear’ short ( sits on my waist), three quarter sleeve, v-necked mother of pearl buttons and I have owned it for about 15 years. In the last 15 years, several cardigans have joined my wardrobe, then promptly been ignored and misused, until their happy escape to the charity shop, to where they have probably gone to a far far nicer, more  stylishly co-ordinated person, who has not picked them up, thrown them down, locked them in a cupboard for months at a time with no daylight, verbally abused them for just not ‘going with anything’ . So mean. And I really try. I do!

 Yesterday, I tried to wear a  lovely short, boxy, burnt orange cardigan yesterday with a longer thin dark blue checked shirt. It looked nice…yeh, quite stylish.I then put my duvet jacket on the top and headed out. It is November…I did not feel overdressed. I absolutely boiled! It meant that on the tube, not only did I have to take my jacket off, I had to take my cardigan off too. Two things to heave onto my lap under my rucksack, as the tube filled up. Every building I went into was too hot, the cardigan got chucked into a pile with the coat and the rucksack. Never did anyone get to see the full ensemble and by the end of the night as I walked home in the dark, I was still too hot and the cardigan was stuffed in my overfull rucksack.

I know lots of women ( and a few men) who can do marvellously stylish things with the cardigans in their lives. For me they are either too bulky, too long, too thin, too tight round the arm pits….. give me a  jumper any day.

And now to avocados. Today I  found one  lurking in the bottom of my fruit bowl. ‘Oh no! not again!’ I wailed, as I realised, I had not been attentive about the fruit bowl for a goodly number of days and I could see, without even feeling it that the avocado was waaaaaaaaay over it’s sell by date….again! If I opened it, it would be all brown and gungy. I felt it. No chance. Way too squidgey. I opened it anyway and the blighter was perfect! The amount of times I  give  an avocado a little squeeze, think it is ready to roll, and I cut into it and it is as hard as rock, and other times when I think it is so soft and will never be ok and it is. And other times when it is a little bit soft and I open it and it is all brown and gnarly inside. I really like avocados. I hate it when you order them in a caff and they are tough as old boot leather. Nope. Just don’t get avocados either.

I now  formally apologise for the amount of exclamation marks during this post and will try to be more sparing in the future.

SONG OF THE DAY – Handbags and Gladrags -Stereophonics

It’s not all about what you wear!