Stripes with Paisley

Stripes with Paisley??... I can hear the fashion Nazis screaming for miles. Guess what! Their angst is not my problem!

I freely admit that I break all the rules of dress sense every single day. But hey, I’m already breaking a substantial number of rules of female life anyway. One might as well go the whole hog whilst one is at it.

I am a size 22 in a size 0 world, and... there really is nothing left to fear. I am me, even if I starved myself and rowed for hours instead of minutes I am never going to be thin. It just isn’t going to happen. You just have accept that and move on.

Making the most of what you have got, and not sweating the stuff you cannot change is something I like to live by.

The laws of dress sense dictate that if you are larger than the average bear (in my case, grizzly) one should dress in dark tent-like garments and try to camouflage oneself so as not to be noticeable by the rest of the population.

Sorry, not a chance. My inner exhibitionist wants out... If it is bright, loud, outrageously patterned and likely to get me noticed, I’m gonna wear it. I am particularly fond of madras check in bright oranges, pinks and greens...

I was born brunette, which was not to my liking. Nature kinda dealt with that one though. I found my first grey hair at 11 or 12, by eighteen I was substantially grey and certainly by the time I hit forty, I was mostly white under all the hair dye. One of the problems of dyeing white hair back brown is that after a couple of washes, it looks like a ginger cat has upped and died on your head. The imp of mischief is strong in me. My hairdresser bleached my hair out white then added the blue fringe and the rest is not exactly history, but adds to the entire lack of mystique.

Lack of mystique?? Surely every woman wants to be an intriguing mystery??

Well, no... not really. I’m all for the uncomplicated life. Sure, I like to raise a little Cain from time to time, most of that comes from what I look like anyway, but with me wysiwyg works better. I am not especially patient... I like everything to happen yesterday. Besides, if you say what you mean and mean what you say, it saves time and distress later. If everyone knows where they stand that is one less thing to worry about.

I am loud, open, friendly, I will talk to anyone about anything, I do not have a nervous bone in my body, and like George Bernard Shaw’s arms dealer, I am unashamed.

I firmly believe that there is a lot more to worry about in this world than getting into a lather about what others might think, and if, by being me, I can show one other large person who is struggling with their confidence that there really isn’t as much to fear as one has been led to believe, then I might have done a halfway decent job as a human being.

So the hair, the inch-long quite-clearly-acrylic-fake nails and the tattoos are all very much part of the show. These things are representative of who I am. I make no attempt to hide any of them. Why would I? I am proud of all of them.

My tattoos are awesomely funny conversation starters... I went into a shop to buy a Mars Bar, Vlad (the Impala) gave me the munchies, so I just had to go out and grab a Mars Bar so that I could sit still for Stevie to finish him off. The quite elderly Indian lady behind the counter is staring at my right forearm, at first, I’m thinking... disapproval... then she bursts into giggles, and asks me if I know what it means. As a matter of fact, I do, I didn’t just pick dhoom machale out of a tattoo book, so I say yes, and we have a nice little conversation about it. I love all my tattoos, but dhoom machale holds a very special place in my heart, not just my right forearm. It’s a daily reminder that life is there for the living, because there’s only one to a customer.

Let’s party!!

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