My favourite place

My whole childhood is punctuated by trips to Bodiam Castle. With a variety of dogs - over the years - we always took guests there; our cousins, some German friends, Japanese girls, whenever we wanted to show off a bit of the South East of England, we drove down to Bodiam.

On our way back from Hastings, I drove Daughter and her friend (without the aid of the Sat Nav: I am so clever) to Bodiam Castle. It's a tradition; you can't not do it.

I love it so much.

In my eyes, Bodiam Castle just got cooler when Adam Ant jumped from a window and into the moat in one of his videos. Though I've trawled YouTube for Adam and the Ants videos (oh I had a lovely time) I can't find out which one it was.

‘We are all individuals.’ ‘I’m not.’

I had a chuckle at A.Writer’s blog the other day. She was talking about our upcoming Novel Racer meet in Manchester and she linked to a post from Jen at Spiral Skies who’d written about what to wear to look writerly. I think it involved macramé cardigans, aubergine cord flares and big beads. A Writer suggested that we might all turn up wearing that, which I think is hilarious.

Anyway, I do get slightly anxious about returning to the UK for holidays because of clothes. I have a friend who lived overseas for many years and when she came back she looked … uhm … a bit odd; like she’d been outer space or in prison for a while (I’m sure she hadn’t). Nothing was wrong exactly, but there was something indefinably, slightly not right about what she wore.

I would be right up there at the front of a riot yelling that everyone has a right and the freedom to dress as they wish, but since a horrible, socially scarring incident circa 1982 I don’t personally express any individuality that way. It’s funny, but only in the writing of this post have I realised that the reason for this is probably down to one incident.

Being a child of the 80s I was a New Romantic. Adam Ant and Duran Duran - you were my heroes. I remember being right out there with the clothes (oh dear god, some of the things I wore to Non Uniform day make me cringe just to think of.) I have one memory where I wore a new look into our town when … well … it really wasn’t quite high street yet. It involved a ra-ra skirt and legwarmers – just go and look here and for the eye make up, have at look at this. People looked at me as though I was from Mars.

Clearly I’ve never recovered from this incident. I moved here as a jeans and t-shirt (don’t notice me or my clothes) person but the expat women dress pretty smartly and I was constantly turning up to things and feeling embarrassed at how slobby casual I was. So I have smartened up a bit … I’m not quite accessorised and coiffed to within an inch of my life, but I’m more together than I’ve ever been. (Sometimes I get my nails painted.)

So today I dug out my jeans (it’s too hot for them here) but I’m still left with a slight anxiety about whether or not I should be trying to find purple macramé before I leave for the UK.