New Dress

Here's G proudly showing off her new dress. Mrs J produced it last night, after disappearing off into the attic for a couple of hours with a load of fabric and the sewing machine. I don't mind admitting I was quite impressed, from what I remember of home economics at school (not much), I'd probably spend a similar amount of time just getting the thread into a needle.

The weather this month is going to be 'unsettled' according to the forecasters, and 'pretty rubbish' according to the rest of us. Mrs J, who has asked for a fancy new sewing machine for her birthday in a couple of weeks, is keen to run up lots more dresses for G. "This winter is going to be all about dresses and leggings," she said earlier, in the sort of way which made me unsure as to whether she was asking me what I thought or telling me what was going to happen. I'm guessing it was probably the second of those, though.

Since G was little she's often been mistaken for a boy as she regularly wears jeans, partly because we've acquired a lot of second-hand unisex clothes from various places, and mostly because I find jeans a lot easier to deal with than tights, leggings or anything else, having not had much training in handling the latter.

I couldn't care less if people think G is a boy. In fact, I get a sort of perverse pleasure from telling people she's actually a girl, even if I occasionally hear the odd bit of under-the-breath muttering about why little girls shouldn't wear blue tops or jeans. But Mrs J doesn't like it much, and she'd far rather people recognised her little girl as being, well, a girl. Even if it means struggling with dresses and tights when my daughter is squirming and needs a nappy change, it looks as if I'm going to have to take this one for the team. Admittedly, the dresses do make her look pretty, so I suppose it'll be worth it.