The dress is Diane Von Furstenburg, a simple frock rendered from a genius blend of silk and wool. The cardigan is J Crew from Las Vegas, the boots are Charles David and snapped up on ebay for a ludicrously good price, while at my glace leather feet sits my faithful, over-burdened Mulberry Bayswater in which I have decided to be interred after I am cremated.
The jewellery is a mixed bag. The pendant was a couple of dollars at the Rozelle markets but the leather thong comes from the Jigsaw sale shop in Whatleys which is, by startling co-incidence, in Bayswater, London. It was once a grand department store and is now a grand shopping mall with lots of specialty shops including a stonking big Zara. The smaller more refined piece is a gold Tiffany Bean which my husband gave me for my 29th birthday back in the Restoration period.
And this is Phillip Larkin.
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
The final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
Sometimes I wish I could wear a poem to work.
