The Inventory

The INVENTORY is complete and the results are shocking. All the clothes have been hauled from their various hidey holes, under-bed crates, boxes, drawers, suitcases and hangers. Excluding shoes and bags, pyjamas and underwear – 180 items of clothing. And I can never find anything to wear. Tops: long sleeve, short sleeved, vest tops, blouses, jumpers, fleeces and silly little shrugs = 104; Skirts = 13 (when we in the motorhome I never even possessed a skirt, where did these come from?); Trousers = 28 pairs; jackets, gilets and coats = 29; work suits = 4 and dresses = 2. Most of these things haven’t seen the light of day since I moved to France. I left them piled up on the spare bed for a couple of days, whilst I deliberated. Was it really safe to throw away the work suits? What if I had to go back to office work? Seriously, would I really go back to work in an M&S suit that was eight years old?

First question: what doesn’t fit? I tried everything on and weeded out a couple of size 14 skirts that I had bought with optimistic hope that one day they would fit. But, our recent efforts at dieting had paid off and two pairs of stretch jeans that I had carted from one house move to another now fitted with ease. I was even discarding clothes because they were too big! And the Tesco jeans that were so flared I tripped over the hems.

Next, the suitcase of work clothes. In theory this could go straight to the clothing bank, but as I had hauled it across Paris I felt it deserved at least a little consideration. Four suits, one dress and eleven tops; four pairs of formal trousers and seven jackets; are any of these useful in rural France? I selected a couple of per una blouses, maybe I could wear these with jeans? A couple of days later it was clear that jeans and t-shirts are the most practical and the frilly blouses soon made their way into the black sacks.

Result: four black sacks ready for the clothing bank. If I had been in the UK I would probably have sold them on Ebay, but let’s face it an East jacket that I bought in a charity shop in Market Harborough for £8 owes me nothing, however much I might feel attached to it. I have probably thrown away a third of my wardrobe, but nothing will really be missed. I need to keep clothes for the way I live now, not some fantasy life. The next step is to select those 33 pieces that will form my capsule wardrobe.