Port Macquarie, New South Wales and my travelling companions, lily-livered with hangovers, are bedridden and moany. It's raining. My hostel bunk and tired book hold limited appeal so I decide to indulge in some retail therapy. It's been raining for days now and my optimism re the Australian winter is beginning to wane - I thought it would be just like an Irish summer. And it is. I leave the hostel determined to buy a sensible jacket and instead spend the afternoon shopping for sweaters with a little old lady who asked me to choose one for her son, then took a shine to me. She's about 147 years old, so I imagine her son as a pot-bellied and balding bachelor and choose the duds accordingly. Lovely! she exclaims. If only he could meet a nice girl like you... she says wistfully, as we finger some more argyle.
Fast forward two years and a wet Tuesday evening finds me in A-Wear on Grafton St. shopping in vain for Christmas Clothes. Everything seems to be covered in sequins. I am trailing around with a Peter O' Brien dress over my arm, imagining how like Gráinne Seoige I will look in it (ignoring the fact that I have neither her handsome face nor her hugglesome boobies). As I make my way to the changing rooms in order to effect this miraculous transformation, a wheedling American accent tugs at my sleeve.
"Hey miss!" Dum dee dum dee dum mumbles my face as I determinedly ignore her trills for attention. Shoo. I am not in the mood. "Miss!" she shouts, tapping me on the arm and smiling up at me through her orange lipstick and massive teeth in that sweetly formidable way that all ladies over seventy seem to master. Most people are suckers for puppies and small children. Me, I cannot help but indulge the elderly. Which is why I am always the one who ends up sitting uncomfortably on the oul lad's knee at parties, or trying on clothes for ancient American ladies who are shopping for their granddaughters and who surmise that we might be of a size.
I am too polite to refuse, so I reach out, horrified, and take the proffered items.
Mumble pants*. Sparkly mumble pants and, to strike Balance squarely in the knackers, a jumper the far side of dowdy. I pull the leggings on and the jumper over my head, hoping that it is just about long enough to cover all unsightly bulges. The changing room curtain is heavy with my humiliation but I step out, frumpy dumpy, to face ridicule. Instead I am faced with a little old lady, so enchanted by my appearance that she claps her hands in glee. I do a little flounce, a mortified taa daa! before I am allowed to struggle out of them again.
Relieved, I hand them back to her and slip the Gráinne gúna over my head. Seoige svelte and sexy in 3... 2... 1... Oh fuck. Dog's dinner does not cover it. I throw a strop, take a hump and cart my lovely lady lumps home.
*Leggings so tight that you can see the lips move... Blame Felix.
Fast forward two years and a wet Tuesday evening finds me in A-Wear on Grafton St. shopping in vain for Christmas Clothes. Everything seems to be covered in sequins. I am trailing around with a Peter O' Brien dress over my arm, imagining how like Gráinne Seoige I will look in it (ignoring the fact that I have neither her handsome face nor her hugglesome boobies). As I make my way to the changing rooms in order to effect this miraculous transformation, a wheedling American accent tugs at my sleeve.
"Hey miss!" Dum dee dum dee dum mumbles my face as I determinedly ignore her trills for attention. Shoo. I am not in the mood. "Miss!" she shouts, tapping me on the arm and smiling up at me through her orange lipstick and massive teeth in that sweetly formidable way that all ladies over seventy seem to master. Most people are suckers for puppies and small children. Me, I cannot help but indulge the elderly. Which is why I am always the one who ends up sitting uncomfortably on the oul lad's knee at parties, or trying on clothes for ancient American ladies who are shopping for their granddaughters and who surmise that we might be of a size.
I am too polite to refuse, so I reach out, horrified, and take the proffered items.
Mumble pants*. Sparkly mumble pants and, to strike Balance squarely in the knackers, a jumper the far side of dowdy. I pull the leggings on and the jumper over my head, hoping that it is just about long enough to cover all unsightly bulges. The changing room curtain is heavy with my humiliation but I step out, frumpy dumpy, to face ridicule. Instead I am faced with a little old lady, so enchanted by my appearance that she claps her hands in glee. I do a little flounce, a mortified taa daa! before I am allowed to struggle out of them again.
Relieved, I hand them back to her and slip the Gráinne gúna over my head. Seoige svelte and sexy in 3... 2... 1... Oh fuck. Dog's dinner does not cover it. I throw a strop, take a hump and cart my lovely lady lumps home.
*Leggings so tight that you can see the lips move... Blame Felix.
