Suiting myself
In breaking news from the bonkers world of fashion, the boiler suit is hot, hot, hot. As hot as Venus, maybe. At least on the British high street. Or so the Telegraph semi-reliably tells me. A denim boiler suit, from the chain store John Lewis, has a waiting list of 1000 people. Most of whom, one imagines, count a walk to their local John Lewis store as a walk in the country.
There is a leopard-patterned suit, and one with little frills on the shoulders. There is one model that features a “bum flap”, which is designed to deal with the downside of the boiler suit: having to go in a hurry.
Winston Churchill may or may not have invented the boiler suit. He had a range of what he called “siren suits”, which he wore throughout World War II as some sort of sartorially suspect armour against air raids. He even had a pin-striped version, which must have cost a pretty penny.
A top-of-the-range fashion boiler suit costs about $450. Some years ago, I bought Greg, in an excessively romantic gesture for his birthday, a boiler suit from Farmlands, which is where you can also buy utterly disgusting bags of dried mealworms for your chickens. I think the boiler suit cost an eye-watering $80. I can’t remember what a bag of disgusting dried beetle larvae costs.
In the country, the boiler suit is sensible gear. Most farmers wear them. Oddly, I have yet to see one with frills on the shoulders. Or a bum flap. It is hard to imagine that, in the country, a boiler suit will ever be high fashion. But it would be fun to wear the leopard-patterned version to what passes for the high street in Masterton. psychologist, whatever that is, as diagnosing languishing as “a sense of stagnation and emptiness … as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield”. There and shrieking that she is being starved to death, again, and must immediately have her breakfast. The chickens are beginning to grumble loudly in their coop. They, too, are being starved to death and must immediately have their breakfast. The pet ewes, Xanthe, S’periment and Elizabeth Jane, are bellowing from their paddock. They are starving to death, etc, etc.
Then I have to move the mob of ewe lambs from one paddock to another, which involves the opening of three gates, the enticing of said ewes and the herding of an always recalcitrant mob, which is much like attempting to herd very large cats.
At midday, I feed the chickens, then let them out to free range, which translates to their sitting on the terrace, grizzling, pecking at the window, crapping everywhere and digging up my seedlings. I give the pet ewes a lunch of plums and pears and biscuits and check the lambs.
At 8.30pm, I am again outside. I am putting the chickens in their hutch. I let the pet ewes out of the paddock and spend the next hour chasing them around my garden and attempting to stop them from eating it. I am checking the ewe lambs and attempting to stop them eating my shorts in search of biscuits. Did I mention that it is raining again?
I need a boiler suit. A waterproof one. But mostly, I need a languish, which is another definition of going back to bed on a rainy Sunday morning and drifting off over a trashy thriller. ▮