Inappropriate clothing by Sheila

I am sure you will have heard it said that there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. Well my friend Mary carries that saying a bit further! She thinks that you can cope in any circumstances, so long as you have the “right underpinnings” on! And I do take a lot of heed of what Mary says. I have known her for more than 40 years and she has done some amazingly diverse things during that time. She has been trained to wield a chain saw, has surf boarded regularly with her children and grandchildren, worked as a film extra, stood guard for a week over an osprey’s nest and has been a catwalk model. So perhaps you can understand my obsession with getting the base layer right for the climb: with the right underpinnings, you can conquer all!

With this in mind, I made off to Mountain Warehouse again this week, to pick up some skiing underpinnings for Oscar in the sale. I have bought him an identical kit in merino wool to that which I bought for myself last week: base layer top and bottom, plus a mid-layer top. I have become especially attached to my mid-layer top because the sleeves come half-way over my hands with a slot to pass my thumb through. It is such a great way to stop sleeves wrinkling up, when struggling in and out of coats. I always thought it looked really sloppy when I saw youngsters with long sleeves, often with home made holes cut for their thumbs. Well, all is forgiven. It keeps everything so snug. Jumpers I knit in future are all going to have long sleeves with thumb holes. The only drawback is that it makes it impossible to see the time on your watch, but as you will already know from previous blogs, my watch is not coming up Kili, so that won’t cause me a problem there.

Mum with her thumb in a hole