All I ever wanted to be.....

A week and a half ago, Lucy Mangan wrote volubly in the Guardian about a Christmas incident when she was a teenager where her father presented her and her sister each with a slice of hick chic all the way from Carolina when he was posted there for work. All in all, her description of the dressed-up lumber shirts had me in stitches (sic). However, funny as her column was, I could not touch base with Lucy – no one has ever presented me with a slice of backwoods’ bling. Next weekend, however, I squealed in empathy with Victoria Coren’s column in the Observer . Victoria gripes over how us women are supposed to appear at our most glamorous at the darkest, coldest, wettest or frostiest time of year, while the boys are permitted to stay snug as rug bugs in sensible suits and boots. Even as a child, I puzzled over the fashion spreads in December magazines; painted females in trip-me-up shoes and gold foil dresses that began somewhere just above the bosom and ended halfway down the thigh. In the time and place I spent my formative years, not even the average winter ensemble of wools and furry cottons prevented me from sporting the glorious accessory of a snuffly head cold on 25/12. No, I never was the fairy on top of the Christmas tree.