Resistment

This is my phone cover —

— inspired by Elizabeth Warren.

It is tremendously useful to me. Every time I am tempted to stop writing, stop preaching, stop going to church, stop living (all frequent and regular occurrences), I see my phone cover and I think, "Okay; not yet."

But just at this moment I am resisting rather than persisting. Specifically, I am resisting beautiful dresses. Let me tell you about them.

I am going to link the photographs, not as an act of advertisement but because the photos aren't mine so I should, and the links take you to see lots of pictures of the dresses, which are also on my Pinterest board called "Wearing Peace Flow".

I think these two dresses are the most beautiful I have ever seen.

I want these dresses with every fibre of my soul. But there are two problems which I am steadily bearing in mind.

The first is that they are one size and, as I am sure you are aware, one size fits none. The Chinese people who make these dresses thankfully provide, as many UK manufacturers do not, the measurement across the shoulders. The bust measurement of the dresses is, as you can see, both flexible and massive, because of the folds of fabric and the cross drape (a modest dresser's dream come true). But the shoulder measurement is, in the case of one, fifteen and three quarter inches, and in the other, sixteen inches. My shoulders are seventeen inches across and would remain so even if I lost every fat cell on my body. I just have the skeleton of an Amazon. Furthermore, my hypermobility means I slouch and flop and droop, and need wiggle room around the angles of my body as a result. So if I purchased either of these dresses I would bitterly regret it because they would be just that little bit too skimpy across the back. So, no. "No, no, no" — I tell myself.

Then there's another thing. About a million years ago when my children went to school out in the country village of Robertsbridge, I drove out from Hastings to take them and collect them every day. The school secretary, a sweet and delightful Danish lady with a candid and spontaneous approach to life, greeted me one day with her usual open, cheerful, loving kindness, saying with concern, "Oh! Are you unwell?"

"No," I said, puzzled; "I'm fine."

"Ah! I just thought you might have been because you're wearing your dressing gown."

That "dressing gown" was my very posh long line cardigan from East, that I thought the height of sartorial chic. I never wore it again.

Now, here in the UK we have a tradition of plaid dressing gowns, perhaps especially red tartan dressing gowns. Like this one.

I am in the morning of old age. I live in a town on the south coast which relies heavily on nursing homes to make its economy thrive.  I have been out in my car in the early morning and actually seen a wild-haired old lady hurrying along the street in her nightie and dressing gown and slippers, then twenty yards further along the road observed a nurse in uniform hurtling along in hot pursuit.

I know exactly what would happen if I went out in one of those beautiful dresses. I'd be apprehended and turned in at a nursing home, and I'm not quite ready for that.

Furthermore, in case I needed any concluding dissuasion, both those dresses cost a lot of money.

I got these ones instead —

— at a fraction of the price.

As these come in sizes, I was able to get a massive size to take account of my broad-beamed shoulders. I think the Chinese people have difficulty imaginatively encompassing the dimensions of Western people. In sizing these, they have as it were taken the corner and enlarged the whole thing. The size that fits my shoulders is consequently fifty-five inches long. Stilts required.

So far I own one of these dresses (the black one). In order to not actually walk on my own dress as I proceed through the world, I had to chop a length off the bottom (like the government changing in and out of British Summer Time — never were the initials BS so advisedly applied). But that isn't simple because the front dips, presumably to accommodate, in wearing, the humungously voluptuous frontal development the Chinese have assumed is an addition implicit in requiring an Asian size XXXL, but which I do not have. In my case, just the shoulders.

Dress 2 and 3 are on order, and I am girding up my loins for the daunting task of cutting a few inches off the bottom, but with the correct upward curve to result in a hem straight all round. I remember it well from last time, and I assure you it is not easy. Especially as the fabric which proclaims itself to be cotton — but I do not believe this and suspect it is rayon — is somewhat slippy with all the elusiveness going with that.

So, though I visit my Pinterest board wistfully and often, nevertheless I am resisting and resisting. I am not going to buy those beautiful dresses. I do not want to be captured by a nurse and taken away. At least, not just yet.