Shirt Sleeves and a Gilet

Wednesday 24th April

I was hot yesterday.  And not only on the overcrowded tube but all day.  The office on Monday is often freezing, North facing and rarely touched by the sun, the one radiator in the office barely getting mildly warm.  But yesterday it was a gloriously sunny day and I was hot.  As usual without really thinking I had put on a jumper, one of two I bought in the Next sale on Boxing day actually.  I pulled it over my head, and tucked my cuff-linked shirt into the sleeves, not the most elegant of sartorial arrangements, but needs must – and besides at a certain age comfort overtakes fashion and as long as you are warm and comfy who cares quite what you look like.

So for the first time in months I took my jumper off at work.  And today I decided the jumper had to stay at home, not even secreted in the bottom of my bag for an emergency.  I wore shirtsleeves and my gilet I bought in France, and so far I have been fine.  No, really.  Not even a tad cold.   Looking around me I can see many are unsure, a few, maybe out of habit are still wearing thick coats or anoraks, some still wearing a woolly something or other, but a few like me are in shirtsleeves.   Though I haven’t yet seen a gilet; black jackets seem de rigeur today I am afraid.

Mind you I haven’t consigned the jumper to the bottom of the wardrobe just yet, it is still sitting there watching and waiting, because it, like all of us knows only too well how our weather can deceive us into thinking it might actually be Spring.