Swagger Coat - noun 1. - a woman's pyramid-shaped coat with a full flared back and usually raglan sleeves, first popularized in the 1930s.
I had never heard of a Swagger Coat but I can see how it got its name. You do, kind of, swagger along when you're wearing one. Especially if you're carrying your huge leather bag, and another two cloth bags full of groceries.
Mmhmm but still, how I smiled as I swaggered ... perhaps staggered, back home. Just call me Sherpa Di. I can often be spotted carrying huge loads back home from London, from Cobham.
The coat was there in the secondhand shop. I was looking for a sugar bowl with a lid but I tried the coat on for fun. I had so much fun, simply wearing it, that I couldn't resist. It was a massive bargain. Then it got cold outside, and then I realised it would be easier to wear it because it's quite heavy and voila, that's how my afternoon unfurled.
That was me, swaggering home, loaded down but smiling ... Smiling hugely.
However, before all of this ... my bus route has changed because the road that it uses is closed for repairs. It became clear that I'd either missed the bus, or it's stopping elsewhere, in a place I didn't yet know about.
I asked a young woman and her mother, who lived near the bus stop, if they knew anything about this temporary stop but they didn't.
Do you know what they did?!! They asked me where I was going and when I said Cobham, they said they'd take me there. And they did.
The English ...! I find them so very very kind.
So very.
Joy is just shimmering up and out of me of me as I write this. And Richard, the bus driver ... he had the most excellent news but more on that later because really, this is already so much.
