Sarah Todd: Sizing up the washing machine as the culprit for clothes that don’t fit

Our school secretary asked me what was on the agenda the other afternoon and was told taking back to the shops some jeans that didn’t fit.

“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t realise you were on the same diet as me…”

No, she was told rather sharply, this clothes exchanger wasn’t following any specific diet plan.

“I think you are,” she said. “It’s the same as mine – the BBC diet. Haven’t you heard about it?”

After a moment or two of gormless wondering, she revealed: “It’s the buy bigger clothes diet.”

While returning the trousers, there were some young men outside the library the other week, canvassing for signatures on letters in favour of a windfarm proposal. They took my name and address to add to a pre-written letter of support.

What a waste of money to receive back from the council – by first-class post – a letter “acknowledging receipt” from the planning department.

Surely this is a stupid waste of money. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg. There must be thousands of pounds of public money wasted on such unnecessary correspondence. And for any local authority to be using first-class postage in the current economic climate, seems an extravagance.

Talking of post, the children love getting a letter. There are lots of adults who sit back waiting for thank-you letters but never think of actually writing or getting a correspondence going.

Our offspring were amazed to learn recently that, right from being a schoolgirl and through her early married life, ‘great grandma’ had written to somebody in America. Their father then confessed that he’d had a German pen-pal. The correspondence ceased after some infamous football match between his team and Leeds United.

Perhaps readers have tales to tell of pen-pals? There are websites for children from around the world to e-mail each other, but any information about old-fashioned pen-pals would be interesting.

The gardening bug hasn’t really struck yet this year but there are signs of life clambering out of gaps in a stone wall , which has given a cat’s whisker of enthusiasm to proceedings.

After 10 years of trying, foxgloves are finally growing – in completely different places to where they were planted. This rambling cottage-garden style of planting is very much my cup of tea. But, after all these years, it’s finally dawned that it’s a look that’s impossible to create – it just sort of happens.

As a security precaution The Husband’s edgers and shears have been hidden. A warning’s been issued, if he finds and uses them all his favourite jumpers will go in the washing machine.

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