A dress for graduation

Heather is graduating this week. She got a 2:1 which we are all very pleased with and on Friday Andy and I are going up to Norwich to see her get her handshake and certificate.

Well, we are going up on Thursday because her ceremony is at the highly unsociable hour of 9.30 on Friday morning which means we'd have to rise at 5, leave by 6, probably get caught in all sorts of annoying rush hour traffic and arrive five minutes late, bursting into the auditorium all red, flustered and cursing and embarrass Heather into the ground. So we're travelling up Thursday and staying in an hotel to avoid this scenario. I suspect the university are in league with the Norwich Tourist Board and get a cut for every hotel room booked by the parents of those who are graduating.

Also, Andy is keen to have lunch at the Elveden Forest Estate. We stopped there once before. It has a nice restaurant/coffee shop/bistro which serves proper food, a lot of it raised and grown on the estate itself. It has a courtyard of bijou independent shops selling the sort of stuff you never realised you wanted until you saw it, and it has a food hall selling everything from posh oils to frozen rabbit. Last time we went to Norwich we planned a stop at Elveden but I somehow managed to doze off for about two minutes and in that time Andy made a wrong turn where the A11 and the A14 turn into each other and back again and we ended up heading for Cambridge or somewhere. By the time we got back on track we'd missed the estate completely. This time I shall be staying awake 'coz I want my lunch.

So I was thinking about Heather's graduation and I had a sudden crisis about what to wear. I mean, are graduations posh dos? Does one wear a hat? It's okay for Heather - she's sorted. Long black swoopy robe, funny hat with a salmon pink tassle, she's sorted. I rifled through the wardrobe to assess suitablity of current available clothing. Nothing leapt out and screamed 'GRADUATION' at me, so whilst I was in town on an errand, I popped into a couple of shops to see if I could pick up either a nice top, or skirt or frock. Nothing doing.

And then yesterday Andy made the mistake of asking me what I'd like to do on Sunday and I said, 'I'd like to go to Canterbury, please, to find something to wear to Heather's graduation,' so we did.

We had lunch at a tiny cafe called 'Bohos' which professed to be bohemian in style but I reckoned leaned a little too closely to Goth. Anyway, the food was nice and I eventually found a top in M & S. It wasn't my first choice. I have realised I have to be wary of my first choice of clothing these days as I tend to swoop on colour first, giving scant regard for style and practicality. In this case I swooped on a skirt which was white with masses of huge red, pink and orange flowers all over it. There was a dress in a similar fabric but unfortunately it had a side zip and I can't cope with side zips. I think it is something to do with my rib cage which is wide, or possibly fat. If I'd have got the size to fit my rib cage, the boob and hip size would have been too big.

So I carted this skirt around for a while. The more I carried it around, the louder it became. I thought, I can't wear this, it is way to ostentatious. So I did another circuit of the shop and this time found a top which again was mainly white, and again had flowers, but this time the flowers were tiny and in various shades of blue and green. 'This is pretty.' I thought. ' Far more suitable.' So I bought the top instead.

And now I've got home and checked the wardrobe again, and realised my clothes are predominantly loud pinks, reds and purples, so I have nothing to go with my new top. I possess nothing green and the only blue skirt I have is a heavy winter one. So sometime this week I'll have to go back into town for another forage.

It's all very tiresome. But I don't want to show my girl up on her day. I don't want her friends to look at me and say 'Blimey, where did your mum escape from?' I know she will thump them if they do, but even so, I intend to do my best and not embarrass her with my over-flamboyant colour sense.

Now all I need to go with my top are a pair of lime green silk palazzo pants and I'll be sorted...