Posh Frocks and Best Behaviour

I'm not allowed to tell you some really exciting news and I'm bursting at the seams to blurt it out!

Shhhhhhhhh!

No really, I just can't and it's driving me mad!

This is the news that made me blub down the phone on Thursday evening, well up with pride, and ring every member of our family within a 20 minute phone relay. 

I just can't spoil the surprise. It's got to stay under my hat until after the event. What event?

I can't say a thing, there's an impargo. A ban on telling anyone. Slapped on by the hosts and organisers.

OK, well I may have just sent out a few teensy tweets  and FB page updates before I knew it was all Top Secret Squirrel. I retracted them, it's like it never happened.

Anyway, anyway, anyway... here's the thing... the exciting news means going to a glitzy do with a very particular dress code.

You know, one which states you must wear neck attire of a certain shape.

And here's another thing. The whole family are invited to this event to which one must be clean and smart, not only at the beginning, but also throughout and with any luck at the end. There will be media types present. Photos will be taken.

Minor panic to self. Have they seen Natty, or for that matter Mia, or come to think of it Daddy Downs Side Up eat? Or me after a glass of Prosecco? Particularly whilst wearing food magnets Sunday Best.

OK. I took a deep breath and scurried upstairs and peeked inside the girls wardrobes. They've been bridesmaids, they've been on telly, they have party dresses. I felt confident I'd find something suitable...

I turns out that the girls have grown a fair bit. The party shoes were 2 sizes too small too, and the beach dresses that fitted just didn't quite fit the bill.

OK. I know Daddy Downs Side Up is sorted. (How EASY is it to be a man at these occasions. The standard issue suit and funny waist thing and impossible to tie tie gets dusted off and away you go.)

But don't be silly. We can't find the cumberband or the tie. "I KNOW I bought one for Fi's do last year." "Are you sure? Weren't you a rebel and went without a tie?"

So tonight we have looked in every drawer, hunted among the fluff under the bed, climbed on furniture to look in the high up inaccessible places, searched in the sleeves of suits and in the bottom of the dry cleaners suit carriers. No flippin' show. Marvellous.

Right, not a big deal. Two girls dresses and a dickie bow to buy.

I'm fine of course. I have a sumptuous floor length devoré purple velvet show-stopper in the wardrobe. All spaghetti straps and cowl neckline. 

"Let's see you wear it Mummy!"

Well, I can say that I was proud that I could zip the aforementioned gown up to my ribs. I just couldn't shoe-horn the boobs in. Nowhere near. And what is about having children that seems to make your ribcage increase in size?

To be honest reader, it looked like a moth-eaten curtain 15 years down the line anyway. There were other options. Never was one to be a one trick pony.

Option 2: The sequined knee-skimming number...

"You look like a magician's assistant."

The truth was, he was absolutely correct. I did. Ta da!

Option 3: An outsider chance. An expensive Japanese designer skirt and top with a very structured feel, slightly 80s shoulders and tonnes of pleats which was a present from hubby once upon a time.

Too tight, too 80s, too square-shouldered, too 'oh heck where has the time gone'.

Let's not even go there.

We might just turn up in jeans! It wouldn't change a thing. I'm still the proudest Mummy I could ever be.

You might also like to read Thank You Body for What You Have Done.

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Thank you H x