My grandmother loved the sales.
She would buy blouses, nighties, dresses, stockings, twin-sets, gloves and suits.
Her armoire was brimming with bargains to be pulled out and worn during the appropriate season…last year’s model at half the price.
Her bottom drawer held silks and lace, stockings and scarves, fur collars and gloves…lingerie.
Her hats were stacked in boxes and rustled with tissue paper when lifted out to inspect, she kept their pins in a cushion on her dressing table.
Notting Hill Antiques
She was always fashionably dressed.
Women of that generation still are, their tweed skirts and silk blouses worn over stockings and well polished shoes take them shopping or for coffee with a friend and set them apart from the ultra casual jeans-with-tennies-and-oversized-jumper crowd of today.
When I was young and staying with her during one of my boarding school breaks, we would go to mass several times a week. A penance for lapsing during her early married days that became a habit she passed on to me.
We had gone up for communion and Nana had taken the last place at the altar rail.
I was standing waiting my turn to kneel and glanced down at her legs and noticed, on the sole of one of her shoes, irrefutable evidence of her shopping habit,
“Sale Price 10/6d.”
I hurriedly looked away not wanting to embarrass her by drawing the attention of onlookers who couldn’t help but notice the bargain footwear if they but glanced down.
From that day forward I checked the soles of my shoes before going out.
I never knew when I may be called upon to kneel and I wasn’t going to be taking any chances.
I wanted no tell-tale stickers to give anyone insight into my thrifty character!
That is, until today, at a requiem mass, instead of the customary standing to receive the Blessed Sacrament we were called upon to kneel at an all too familiar communion rail.
I thought nothing of it until I removed my shoes in the car and noticed the unmistakable signs of a bargain,
Re-enactment of the revelation
I had spent 19 on these very chic heels.
19 what you may ask?
Pounds, Dollars, Roubles, Yen, Piastas?
It doesn’t matter, the evidence has proved the verdict that I, like my grandmother, love the sales and will bare my sole to prove it!
What a lovely way to remember this very special woman in my life.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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