Hello July!

So winter solstice has passed.

2nd month of winter is on and it's not too bad. There are cold days and rainy days, but that is winter. There is also sunny days, when you are greatful to be out doors.

I made the mistake of waiting until I had finished my book before heading outdoors on Friday. It was divine, warm wind whipping past my arms, as I walked the kid across the park and browsed at the Oxfam bookshop. Couldn't find what I wanted (Dawn Powell, Julie Craig, Linda Grant) but the kid received a compliment as appearing to be an interested reader (at minus 1, in age, that's a nice observation).

I've just finished reading We Had It So Good by Linda Grant, who has a blog that she turned into another one of her books. The Clothes On Our Backs, which I also finished. The latter is great, because she explains how clothes can mean something to people who are otherwise intelligent and not vacuous. It's easy to think clothes are important to superficial materialistic people, but they can be important to the Holocaust survivor, that she interviews and writes about, or to the woman aged 50+ who is otherwise invisible in modern society. Just as when I read Luella Bartley's book, I thought of the social ages she described, and how by describing the way she dressed in her 20s, when she was at fashion school and first in the workforce, she provided a more detailed biography than if she'd tried to detail it with facts only. And she too laments pieces of clothes too easily given away, and perfect shoes that she believed could always be found again, but never were. Shoes, yes, if you find good shoes you should get them and look after them, because you don't buy luxuries when you're a new mother or poor, but you can get through this time with the right shoes from the past.

What else? I realise, just as your clothes might provide your biography, so might your reading list and really, if I was anally retentive about this, I would have a detailed reading request list, alphabeticised, that even included the origin of recommendations. But no, I do not. Clothes? I think I nailed it today: my Quaker opshop pants and  my new purple shoes, with small floral motifs, that I bought at Nadia's House of Serendipity, after chatting to Dan from work, there with his family.  Only a photo would really do justice to this outfit, you just have to trust me.