JOANNE Watkinson
January 1 might have the honour of being the first day of the New Year, but everyone knows September is the real fresh start.
It’s the bittersweet end of summer and a visible change in the seasons – which, when you take a minute to breathe in, is pretty spectacular. For all my grumbles about living in the UK with our rotten weather and lack of EU inclusion – I wouldn’t like to live anywhere without visible seasons.
Long after I left school, September is still embedded in my head as the time for a reset.
While I no longer get my feet measured or buy a new pencil case in preparation, when the sun sets on the last Bank Holiday of the year it feels like a new beginning.
Obviously that means something different for everyone. For some it’s looking for a new job or deciding to eat more healthily.
For me it’s a second bite at being organised, at having my life under control.
This time around it comes in the form of a refresh, and I am starting with my exercise clothes.
I usually refer to it as my gym gea, but for the benefit of the tape, I shall widen the term to make it more inclusive. It’s an understatement to say I’m not hugely invested in what I wear to exercise in. Having dabbled in patterned leggings in the past and felt more like Mr Motivator than Jane Fonda (forgive the retro references but I don’t have anything more up to date in my arsenal), I now stick to all black with minimal branding, the odd tick here and there is acceptable. But having recently fallen hook line and sinker for yoga, my ninja-esque head-to-toe black has felt too tough looking, and after not being updated since long before lockdown, all my leggings look a little bit sad. There is no longer a pecking order of leggings I wear to clean up in, and those I keep for “best”.
So my September will start with a new PE kit: new leggings, in softer shades, charcoal and maybe olive green, sustainable fabrics of course. I might even iron my name into them, just for old times’ sake.