But What Fine Deniers You Have, Grandmama....

I hate tights. I hate tights with a passion that I reserve for very few things in life. (Apart from slugs. And maybe the persistent little fruit flies in my kitchen that are driving me nuts. Driven to keeping bananas in the fridge, for goodness sake, but still the pesky little critters emerge out of new spud peelings. Where is the fast-breeder in my kitchen? No, not you darling.)

Now, tights, while I hate them,  I do, of course, possess the ultimate sanction. I abandon them in favour of trousers. When I was at a wedding in the summer I noticed that nobody, but nobody was wearing tights. Bare legs were definitely in, regardless of age, leg-mottling or varicose various. I was truly resplendent in a pair of harem silk pants and was also happily tights-free. 

The various alterations upstairs involved a total clearing and wardrobe rationalisation which left me with a huge pile of tights.  Having studiously ignored them  until now, I started to inspect them more closely. Some of these barely worn, some looking almost new. What was I going to do with these? How could I recycle them? Research showed that an African women's charity that had once happily recycled them, had shut down. Disappointing. But I read on and found that various suggestions included keeping your onions suspended in them over the winter! I am not too sure I ever am blessed with so many onions that they need to be stored in the winter, but I loved the image, nevertheless.

However, yesterday there was an article in The Times fashion pages to suggest that tights are back in vogue. They are making an appearance again on the catwalks. Hooray! In the very knicker elastic of time, my tights have been spared a stay of execution.

Maybe I could offer them to my begonia tubers; after all, one don't want one's begonias to catch pnuemonia.  I might be prepared to share. But only if the drop in temperatures forces me back into the age-old battle with the crotch-defying ankle-wrinklers that I hate so well.

Forget Black Opaques, it's Bare or Sheer apparently...

I know my onions. And my bunions, naturally.