On buying pants in Bath

I mentioned the whole pants issue at work (my very part time work in a dress shop) and everybody woke up .....

…. and the discussion went on all day (indeed it crops up every now and then still and this was months ago) and included the general public whenever they overheard …. solutions abounded, Heist tights apparently stay UP, and thus keep pants in place. 

I find that I need a vest to tuck into the pants and the friction (!) element of pant against vest helps, but this really only works in the winter, although at the moment this seems a year round solution as not only vest but two jumpers and a scarf are adding to my outline, which is softly blurred …. this is my take on the matter, others may think otherwise.

In search of pants, I went to Bath, which as the crow flies isn’t that far away, but not being a crow, and there being weird Diversion signs and cross country exploration and worry and “I’ve seen that golf course before” and “I don’t WANT to go to Claverton today” takes considerable time …. and then I got to Bath and couldn’t work out if I should PAY to go in or not (emissions) and how would anyone know if I hadn’t if I should have.

Then I found the underground car park only to remember that the last time I’d found the underground car park I had a temper tantrum and couldn’t actually fit my tiny car into any of the parking slots because of the simply ENORMOUS other cars who took up far too much space and then I went home and sulked.

But this time I didn’t, I thought I was now much older and wiser and would be calm and patient and park.  However, also rounder and me and my cosy outline found the logistics of emerging from the car because of tightness of parking space really quite alarming – what would happen if I couldn’t get out, and had got into a position that didn’t allow retreat into car again? 

Would I have to wait until owner (no doubt pin-thin and athletic) of vast thing came back, and who would probably have ear buds in and wouldn’t hear my plaintive squeaks for help because having high powered meeting conversation (being super important and top of the career ladder with six million children and a really, really good diet “I do all my own ironing too”) and drive off taking me and the car door with them and then sue me for damaging their horrid vehicle and then I’d have to find a really nice lawyer to help me avoid languishing in jail for 900 years?

Later, heading in the direction I thought Marks & Spencers might be (wasn’t), a small person in an astonishingly yellow cardigan asked me if I was lost.  I decided she looked quite safe really, and what could possibly happen in Bath, for goodness sake?  She guided me, chatting all the while (miles, miles and miles) about the cultural amenities of Bath, above the appalling din of an opera singer (was it opera?) successfully clearing the wide open spaces of shoppers.  She had a loudspeaker thing to help with projection of voice.  I think people were chucking change at the bucket in the hope she would stop, please stop. 

The pants section in M&S is …. tiresome.  Vast quantities of different sorts of pants, so many that there is a sort of flow chart affair for the bewildered pant buyer on a banner thing.  An elderly lady (well, more elderly than me) and I bonded in front of this guide to pants.  She said it didn’t help at all, because one had to know what a Brazilian Pant was and what it did.  It was simply awful and I found two sets of what I imagined to be plain black pants (vieille dame en noir strikes again) because then I don’t have to sort whites from not whites for the washing machine.

The Elderly Lady, by this time very pursed about the lips, and I met again over the vest section, which is a much easier thing to deal with and both chose a three pack of cotton vests, and strode towards the “Pay Here” counter and “do you think THOSE are Brazilian Pants?” she asked as a younger sort of person flourished some very diminutive fragments of fabric about with a matching bra thing – we both looked disapproving.  She said “there are amusing shops for those sort of things” and I could only agree.

And as for BRAS….

Could it possibly be that my sentences are a bit long?  

Also, I’m not at all sure how Substack works, and it will probably take time to get a grip on it. “Must try harder”.

And DO go to Claverton Manor American Museum it is full of fascinating things and has a garden with proper views - very soothing after pant searching.   But I can’t get the link thing to work right now. Here is a picture: