Blue Dress Hot Mess

Last week it was Parliament and Gucci boots. This week it is Puma trainer-ballet flats and the Royal Opera House. The Bicester Village—London Chiltern Railways service (tickets valid only via High Wycombe) is always a runway of fashion courtesy of the shopping destinations each end offers, but for me recently it has been a seat in a train by the window, admiring my feet in various guises, eating an apple, and pondering vaguely at life (while watching the white sheep graze the green field through the smudged glass). It is a place of culture and nothingness, couture and language, and I am sitting with three Arabian women so surrounded by Gucci bags and Ladurée macaroons that we resemble the shipwrecked laundry room of a luxury liner. The dog is with my grandfather; I posted the parcel on the way; the To Do list is ticked. 3 hours 40 minutes of opera in language (? – unknown) lie ahead. Covent Garden in June. And I sit and eat my apple and I ponder at life. 

My mind flits: perhaps next week it will be loafers and a job interview. Perhaps. 

The man in the garage where I posted my parcel (farewell Zara multi-coloured skirt; you travelled to India (you rode a camel); you can make the Vinted-Yodel journey alone from here on in) told the shop assistant that he’d had an awful day. He didn’t elaborate. It turned into some kind of futile competition as to whose day had been worse, boasting no I’ve had a bad day, not as bad as mine mate, never as bad as mine, without either one offering a single scrap of evidence. If I were a judge I’d despair and demand to see a witness. I made sure to give them both a smile as I left. They were kind, harmless, and waited for me while I meticulously sellotaped the skirt into an old Asda bag in the hopes it could pass off for an envelope. I hope my smile brought a tinge of comfort. The man in the queue returned it. (I look stupid, all dressed up for the Opera at 3:30 in the afternoon in a service station opposite Bicester Village. My white jeans under a floating sheer sky-blue tunic are an attempt at boho-fairy-Chloé-runway-chic, but I don’t think that lands in Asda. It is hot. I forgot my sunglasses). I wonder as I leave whether I ought to have asked more; been more curious. Demanded just why their days had been so bad, and enquired whether there was anything either of them could do about it. Turn it around. Do a star jump. (Though I know these things don’t always work). 

I applied a blister plaster on the station platform – to my ankle, not to the yellow-lined tarmac. I was stupid to wear brand new unworn trainer-ballet-pumps with no socks in the sun on the way to London. But they are white and pink and pretty and I like them. I do not mind the sweaty-rub at the back of my left foot. Besides, now I am sitting down, eating an apple and watching the sheep and pondering at life, I can’t feel the sweaty-rub at all. 

The trains are all up the spout on the way home. I look stupid – though I said that yesterday – in my next-day Opera attire. The sheer top is incongruous against the large Pret coffee mug. I take the tube from Marylebone to Paddington, and then run to catch the 10.53 to Oxford. I help a lost American family with 5 suitcases and two little blonde pigtailed girls dangling at the end of Mom’s hands. Daaad carries the suitcases (all five) and tries to shuffle the entire collection of his family out of my way as I walk down the escalator. I tell him not to bother (cue grateful black-bearded smile), and wonder why I always walk down escalators and can’t just stand still for a minute and watch the adverts for Coconut yogurt flick past with the required amount of disinterest. The travelling mindset requires me to move. Perhaps I would not make a very good monk. The American family are young. I like them. I want to apologise for my country not functioning (at least in the way of trains). But at the current moment, their country doesn’t much function either. I feel like I’m cheating on Chiltern. My affair will be fleeting, but Great Western rail is an alluring mistress. I see Shetland ponies from the train. I sit next to a woman with mirrors on her necklace. The ticket man rolls his eyes as yet another needy person tells him their ticket was meant to be from Marylebone. Will they be compensated? At least they will refund my ticket. That makes my large Pret coffee free. (I subscribe to Girl-Math).