Repair
Returning from my weekly lake swim, I noticed that my extremely ancient beach towel was fraying badly (much like me these last few weeks). Seams had given away to a Bohemian fringe which was starting to become noticeable as a cloud of blue fluff followed me to the car. Its January and the shops are still shouting about final reductions and filling my inbox with ‘come and get me’ offers but I’ve made a loose resolution to not but anything new, at least for this first month. More a kind of bloody minded resistance to consumerism that any sense of a new year start. Plus, I bought this towel decades ago, when I first left home, a mere youth, a head full of adventures and crippled by shyness. Faded by sun and a thousand or more washes, it’s naïve palm fringed sunset in shades of blue still fills my heart with dreams. I looked at the label, St Michael by M&S, definitely almost an antique. Finding a crochet hook and needle, repairing this old friend became a smugly satisfying night...
