On feelng one’s age. And reflection on fashion and hot weather.

John O’Farell (yes, I am still reading his memoirs) wrote:

“David Cameroon became leader of the conservative Party at the age of 39. That was the day I officially became old. When even the leader of the Tory Party is younger than you, you’re officially inducted onto the association of decrepit old blokes. Top listening to 6 Music, it’s Classic FM for,you now; you’ll find the details in your Radio Times, which you must keep in its own special binder on the coffee table by the National Trust coasters.”

I know the feeling. The new leader of the Spanish Partido Popular looks like a teenager. President Macron of France doesn’t look much older. Mind you, the older political leaders around the world don’t seem to be doing a great job. It’s time we stopped judging by appearances and considered their opinions and policies instead.

Not that I have ever been impressed by the opinions and policies of the Conservative Party or the Partido Popular.

On to more serious matters: fashion!

And the heat!

We all moaned that summer was slow to start and now all the talk around the pool is about how difficult it is to sleep at night because of the heat. Or in my case, because my phone pinged at 1.00 am - my daughter letting me know she had arrived safely at her brother’s house after a long slow journey with roadworks all along the M1. Okay, it was only midnight in the UK but even so, she must have mistaken me for her grandmother who always needed reassurance that we had arrived safely at whatever destination we headed for.

I think I could have waited until this morning to hear from her.

And then there were the very noisy people down in the street at about 7.00 am. It is quite likely they were revellers on their way home from a night out. Good for the, I hope they had a good time but I think they could have been more considerate. By 7.00 it was cool enough to sleep and I would have preferred have remain comatose a little longer!

Annyway, the fashion thing.

And the heat thing.

The heat here at the moment is that sticky kind of heat. The sky is not properly blue; the heat haze makes it a sort of whitish colour. Consequently the sea is also a silvery blue rather than a proper deep blue.

The coolest, temperature- and comfort-wise rather than being at the cutting edge of fashion, things to wear in such weather are long, loose dresses. I realise that this is rather hard on men but that’s just how it goes.

When I visited my son and his family in mid-July, we wandered down into their small town centre on a hot Saturday morning and strolled about the market. On impulse I bought a fairly long linen dress in a dusty rose shade of pink. A very comfortable summer dress. And now Jess Cartner Morley, writing in Guardian confirms my choice.

She might have a posh-sounding name but usually she makes sense about clothes, apart from the occasional ridiculously priced item.

She wrote:

“Rosé has gone from being the third colour on the wine list to the default choice from May to September. It is summer, distilled into an oversized glass. I write this knowing absolutely nothing whatsoever about wine, but I don’t think that matters because the point of rosé is that it is wine for people who don’t know their way around a wine list. To choose a white or a red wine you need to know about grapes and vineyards and climates. To choose a rosé, you just ask for the palest one they’ve got, right?”

Well, personally, I find a nice crisp white wine preferable to rosé. Although last year a group of us enjoyed chilled rosé wine while we listened to Tom Petty in Hyde Park.

But rose is her colour of choice for the summer:

“Choosing rose to wear, just like choosing rosé to drink, depends on getting the shade just right. Too lurid a pink translates as too sugary a taste. This is true on the eye, as well as on the tongue. The shade you want is in the region of the subtle blush that you would drink over a long lunch under the shade of a tree in, say, Provence, as opposed to the diluted-Ribena shade you find on the shelves of a basic off-licence for £6.99. Or, if you prefer to think in petals, the colour of a charming old rose from a David Austin catalogue rather than the toxic pink of forecourt flowers.
I have worn a lot of pink over this summer’s heatwave. I think this is because I am wearing longer, looser clothes than I used to in hot weather. It’s not a modesty thing, or even an age thing, or at least not consciously; I just find that these days I feel more comfortable, less exposed, better able to take the heat in my stride, when I’ve got a long hemline and a floaty sleeve. But floor-length black looks slightly alarming for daytime; white is a bit ghostly; yellow is hard work. Rose, on the other hand, works well when there’s lots of it. Just like rosé, then. Make mine a large one.”

So that’s that then!