Hooray! The holidays are over
Even if you managed to get your holiday wardrobe together, there’s no real sartorial pleasure to be had outside autumn
If you watched the first episode of JK Rowling’s Strike: The Cuckoo’s
Calling, and when Holliday Grainger appeared on screen your first reaction was “Oh, black opaque tights! How we’ve missed you!” you’re not alone. This is the best time of year: the holidays are over and autumn is on the horizon. It’s nothing to do with having run out of ways to entertain the kids (although they have been hanging around for a while), this is about having drained the last drop in the tank of holiday joy, and being ready for a change of pace.
Here are some of the reasons we are experiencing “back-toschool euphoria”:
1. Holidays are exhausting
Why does no one admit this? They are fun, they are different but they are not in any sense restful or rejuvenating. Whatever way you cut it – you’re either flogging around sights in oven temperatures, sunworshipping, or eating and drinking like Tudor royalty before collapsing into bed at daybreak
– it’s knackering. And you have to keep one eye on maximising your relaxation; can’t waste a minute. You’re lucky if you don’t come back feeling shattered. The inevitable flight delay will do it, if the endless cheese, pinot noir and sun doesn’t. (As it happens, if you were in the Lucifer zone in August, you will have returned from holiday fatter and paler than when you left, on account of having had to stay indoors lying under a wet towel.)
2. You never had quite the right clothes
Holiday packing is a test of style, plus foresight and versatility. Your look is either too Joan-collinsdoes-saint-tropez, too music-festival grubby, or just too hot. Endlessly failing to strike the right note (“Why am I wearing white jeans?”) can really get you down, because you are powerless to do much about it. And even if you are one of the ones who did manage to get their holiday wardrobe together, there’s no real sartorial pleasure to be had outside autumn. You can keep your “cruisewear”: we are only truly happy in the season of conker-brown boots, plum-coloured polo necks, grey wool coats and – thank you, Lord – black opaque tights.
3. It has cleaned us out
The great plan to go supercheap in Greece/italy/ Spain for a couple of weeks (“the wine is only one euro a bottle!”) is a thing of the past. Apart from the one euro wine (which is of a quality that you can no longer risk drinking… that is, strictly for the youth), visiting Europe is now like shopping for your groceries in Harrods. That little place on the hill that sells buffalo mozzarella strictly to the locals? Daylesford prices.
4. We don’t have to be outside all the time
Or rather, we can be outside for all the good reasons – like taking a brisk walk in the park, or bonfire night, or standing with the cool people by the bins outside the nightclub. From now on, you don’t always have to be putting on a hat and sunglasses and SPF50 just to have breakfast. No more huddling in a square, under an umbrella, swapping places every few minutes to try to avoid the brutal rays. No more juggling sun cream factors, and letting your heat rash breathe, while covering up your shoulders and making sure your feet don’t burn. Bliss.
5. So long, travel size
We can now return to big immovable tubs of moisturiser, rather than itsy-bitsy miniatures. And hefty hardback books. And the thick scarves and chunky heels that just don’t fit in a carry-on suitcase. All the fat stuff. All the surplus-to-requirement things. We’ve been missing you.