It was the best of days, it was the worst of days… Please forgive me for taking poetic licence and exaggerating but, I can tell you that when I awoke this morning I was filled with dread about the day ahead (a bit of poetry for you, seeing as I took poetic licence). What, you may wonder, could have been so dreadful on such a nice sunny morning? Well, to my mind clearing out wardrobes and cupboards that haven’t seen the light of day for years is an awesome task; that was the worst of it!

Chris and I found that the only way to tackle the terrible job was to attack it head on and pull everything out; Chris kept bringing more bags and piles of horded goods – hidden treasures and duffers – and I had to ask him to slow the process because I was inundated. There were bags for unwanted rubbish and bags for charity shops; some quite nice clothes came back into the fold (in case my new diet, that I’m beginning tomorrow, actually works!). Amongst one of Chris’s deliveries from the upstairs cupboard was a crumpled dress.

“Isn’t this your wedding dress?” Chris asked.

“Yes,” I said holding the golden Chinese-style dress against me, then looking at the label, “but, how funny – I thought my wedding dress was a tight size twelve, and this is a fourteen!”

“It looks like the dress you wore. Shall I put it in the wash?” he asked and I acquiesced, feeling ashamed that my wedding dress had been so badly treated (it appeared that someone had tried to throttle it before throwing it into the hole of Calcutta).

“I hope those creases will iron out,” I said, letting my husband know that I still cared about my wedding dress and what it represents.

Half an hour or so later I was going through the wardrobe in the guest suite when I came across my wedding dress hanging on the rail. It was slinky and smooth… and it was a size twelve! Chris retrieved the other dress from the washing basket for comparison – they were identical! I can’t explain how it is that I have two wedding dresses. Did I, in a trance, buy another dress, try to kill it and shove it in a dark upstairs cupboard, then completely forget my vicious act? Perhaps it will forever remain a mystery.

What about the good bit – “the best of days”? Of course, it was the pleasure at the end of the day to see everything ship-shape. It seems that we have plenty of cupboard space after all. And there was the discovery of the well-preserved wedding dress… but there was another discovery aswell.

“Look at all these old photos of yours that I’ve found,” said Chris, “I didn’t know they were up there – must have been put to one side when we moving rooms around.”

I knew immediately which photographs they were – I had missed them when I was compiling albums a few years ago. After we had stopped work for the day I took a peek at them; there were photos of old Chris (as opposed to my present Chris who is “new Chris” in spite of seventeen years of marriage to him) and Richard – two of my ex-fiances (I didn’t get as far as buying the dress in either case) who both died young from causes other than a broken heart. There was a photo of Dad and me when my father was alive and well; photos of Mary and I in Paris, and me looking very innocent and pious with my hands in prayer in Notre Dame Cathedral; there was a shot of my son Jim and I smoking (he was pretending – or was he? – he was fifteen), and there were photos of nearly all my nieces and nephews when they were darling little tackers(now they are darling big tackers); and photos, too, of my mum and I on holidays in Crete, Germany and Teneriffe  – there was even an old photograph of my Aunty win and Uncle Jeff!

Looking through the snaps I felt a bit sad and yet happy at the same time – I was re-united with much of my past as a single woman. And, as a result, I really am going to diet in earnest as of tomorrow! Wouldn’t it be lovely if one day I could get into either of those mysterious wedding dresses of mine?

(Chris’s scanner isn’t perfection but you get the picture!)