Dressember Day 1: Terry’s Invisible Spear

I had to laugh when I downloaded these photos off the camera: I actually wore this dress, and photographed it against the snow, earlier this year, so it’s Day 1 of Dressember and I’m already repeating myself! I guess this must be my Snow Dress. Feeling the chill? Why, reach for a green tartan dress, of course!

I also had to laugh at the boots, which I got in some equestrian shop or other when I was about thirteen, and went horse riding every weekend. They’re currently the only boots I own which are suitable to be worn in the snow, and this fact is the ultimate vindication for my dad’s habit of never throwing anything away, ever. In fact, he’s looking at this photo right now and shouting to my mum, “I KNEW it was a good idea to keep those things in the garage for significantly longer than most people keep their houses! I TOLD you!” If my 13-year-old self could somehow magically be shown these photos, meanwhile, she’d be going, “Seriously? I never get any new shoes, EVER? And I move to the Arctic circle? And THIS is why I’m always being told to work hard at school?!”

In non-dress-related news, Terry and I seem to have swapped personalities lately. Don’t worry, he hasn’t been obsessively shoe shopping and whining about the weather: I refer to the sleep talking. In fact, not once, but TWICE this week I have lain in bed, smugly secure in the knowledge that there are no crustaceans in MY bed, no sir, while Terry runs screaming around the room in his sleep. From what I can work out, what we’re dealing with here is a “Someone Hiding in the Wardrobe” situation. Uh-huh, one of those.

(Vintage brooches: the square one belonged to my gran, the bow was a birthday gift from my parents. It was made in the 1920s; they’d probably like me to point out that they didn’t actually BUY it back then…)

It always starts the same way with Terry. First there is a long-drawn out, almost comedic “Noooooooooo!” This is uttered in a tone of bitter resignation, almost as if that which Terry has been waiting all night for has finally come to pass, and now he must deal with it. He does this by dramatically flinging the duvet off the bed (and off me, naturally), and running to the other side of the room (I say “running” – it’s about three steps to the other side of the room, maybe two) clutching what I can only describe as an invisible spear above his head.

I don’t know how I know it’s a spear he’s carrying. I mean, he has consistently denied all knowledge of The Person in the Wardrobe when confronted with news of these nigh-time shenanigans. All I can tell you is that when I look up and see him running across the room, my first thought is always, “Oh, there’s Terry with the invisible spear again.”*

And once he reaches the wardrobe? He faces up to it, threateningly, then turns and stares around the room in utter confusion. “Where is the mystery man from the wardrobe?” his expression seems to say. “Where is my invisible spear? WHO AM I?!”

“Put the spear down and come back to bed,” I tell him, still feeling smug that it’s not me running around the room in the middle of the night for once. And within seconds he’ll be back in bed and sound asleep, with no memory whatsoever of the night’s events.

I, meanwhile, get to lie awake for hours, thinking, “Hey, I wonder what IS in that wardrobe? What did he SEEEEEEEEEE?”

* Since I wrote this, Terry has told me that he’s remembered the dream he was having during the latest sleep talking extravaganza, and it wasn’t an invisible spear he was carrying, it was me. I am the invisible spear. So that’s… weird.