Because when you have a blog it’s suddenly normal to share your shame…

Jeeze it’s hot. Gloriously hot, baking hot, move half an inch and you’re pouring with sweat hot.

Just how I like it.

Unfortunately I am not blessed with a family who share my delight at bright sunshine and muscle relaxing, skin bronzing, spirit lifting warmth, oh no.

Beans compliant and easy going self melts into the hot ground and up from the pool of bubbles rises the most stroppy toddler in the whole world ever™. The husband, who is essentially a walking freckle even during the coldest of months, mumbles and frowns at the sun as he tries to scare it back behind the clouds.

I sweat, I get hot and bothered and my shoulders are tight and sore and red but I like summer. I like walking bare foot on the grass and eating ice cream all day because it’s too hot for anything else. I like the seaside and the long, balmy evenings and the smells of cut grass and BBQs and the summery summerness.

Trying to forge invent embrace a ‘new me’ * and drown out the whinges of my summer Scrooges, yesterday I did something I have not done for nearly two years. On our wedding day to be precise.

I wore a dress.

*gasp*

I live a life wrapped in skinny jeans and baggy tops because otherwise I look like a prepubescent boy from behind (and in front actually) or have to field comments about how ‘skinny’ I am.

My devotion to high heals, oh how I pine for them, had to die a death on two counts; a) the husband is the same height as me and being taller than him makes me feel huge in every way and b) I do not want to shatter every single bone in both my legs when Beans trips me up/makes a(nother) crazy bid for freedom/insists on dragging me over uneven terrain. So now I’m always in flats.

I’ve never really been a dress girl, preferring to stick to shorts as they promise to remain clung to my thighs in the face of any freak gusts of wind. Breezes that would lift an unsuspecting skirt up around my neck, probably just as a packed bus was driving past me too.

Plus, dresses have never really fitted me properly. My figures all weird you see; I have hips and a waist, although an admittedly thicker one since pregnancy stretched me out, but nothing spectacular, erm, upfront.

Curvy without the curves. So if a dress fits my teenage bosom then it cuts off the blood supply bellow my waist, if it fits beautifully from the waist down then it gapes at the front as if to say ‘why are you wearing a dress you flat chested boy?!’.

But, like I said, it’s hot, I’m embracing this new me. I think she would wear a dress and that means I have to as well. So yesterday morning I wrestled myself into a maxi dress. The maxi dress is a total cheat dress, it hangs rather than clings, disguising everything and you don’t even have to worry about finding the time to scrape at your shins with a razor because they’re cleverly hidden away under a fabulously flowing skirt. Awesome.

I make my way downstairs, feeling a bit self conscious and over dressed (my default setting when wearing anything other than jeans) but I only stumble twice before I think to grab hold of my skirt and lift it out from under my feet. This effectively saved my life.

The husband says I look beautiful. That’s nice. Then he gets that look in his eye so I throw a metaphorical bucket of water over him by asking for a lift to the supermarket. Ha.

I make it through the whole day as a real girl in my long, floaty dress and by the evening I’m actually pretty taken with it. It is comfortable, easy to run around in, keeps me cool on a scorching day and earns me plenty of attention from the (easily pleased) husband as well as doing a sterling job at hiding my bloated stomach after a huge dinner.

I can totally rock a dress I think, and all buoyed up by my new me plan success I offer to walk to the shop for treats. Off I go down the hill, all look at me wearing a dress and I never wear dresses but it’s actually ok and I quite like it and it’s nice to feel a bit pretty sometimes…

I got too cocky.

Somehow my right foot hooked itself onto the hem of said dress and in trying to stop myself from kissing the pavement with some manic arm flailing (the patented method) my skirt got dragged under my foot and I righted myself to find the top half pulled down from the struggle. It took me a second to move, I must have been embracing being stood in the street with my (functional not pretty) bra on display after a particularly ungainly almost fall. Who wouldn’t want to drink that beautiful moment in?!

I yanked my dress back up and scuttled home as fast as I could with my eyes firmly on the floor and my cheeks burning while followed by the echoes of the excited giggles of ‘boobies!’ from the small group of ten year old boys who had front row seats to the idiot parade.

Unless anyone can convince me this kind of stuff could happen to anyone it may be another two years before I wear a dress again.

* My newest and frankly mildly unhealthy way of dealing with the return of anxiety and bad days is simply to have a bit of an image overhaul. The odd thing that wouldn’t usually be ‘me’ has found its way onto my floor into my wardrobe in the hope that if I look a little different I might just feel it too. Hmm.