Reasons why Fran visits some shops once only

There’s a new charity shop in my local town and I found some black jeans I thought might fit me. ‘Do you have a changing room?’ I said to the lady on the till.

‘Yes,’ she said, but she lied.

For a more honest response, I should have asked, ‘Do you have an alcove the size of a children’s wardrobe and with a very inadequate curtain?’

I stepped into the alcove and pulled the thin curtain across. It fell far short of the floor, stopping at my knees’ height. Anyone in the shop (and there were plenty) would be able to watch my legs undergoing the undressing, trying-on and re-dressing process.

That was if, in the very small space, I could manage the manoeuvre without over-balancing and arriving back in the shop like a large sack of potatoes shaped like a woman with one leg in a pair of jeans and one leg out.

For one moment, I considered standing in the alcove for as long as it would have reasonably taken to try the jeans on before emerging to replace them on the rack with a regretful sigh.

But, as my legs could be seen in the gap under the curtain, patently NOT trying on a pair of jeans, there seemed no option.

I took off my shoes and trousers gingerly, leaning against the wall for balance. Only a couple of inches from me on the other side of the curtain a man - let’s call him Nigel - was saying to someone, ‘That top might suit you, Jane. The one with the flowers.’ I could almost feel his breath and, should my body suddenly catapult itself from the alcove, I would arrive in Nigel’s arms, semi-naked, like a nice surprise only not nice.

Displaying my pink and purple stripey socks, and legs that were last shaved in September, and certain that Nigel had stopped talking to Jane because they were now both pointing at my pink and purple stripey socks and legs that were last shaved in September, I pulled on the jeans.

They didn’t go past my knees.

There were three possible reasons for this. One: I had overestimated their size. Two: I had underestimated my size. Three: Like a threatened puffer fish, I had ballooned to ten times my usual girth, and, if you’ve ever wondered why you never see a puffer fish in skinny jeans, there’s your answer.

Whatever the reason, Nigel, Jane and the forty other people who had entered the shop since I’d gone into the alcove, could now see my hands, tugging at the jeans at knee-level in the vain hope that they were made of elastane and would slide their way up my thighs and over my hips, landing with a SNAP like a clap of thunder.

They weren’t.

I began to peel the jeans off each leg, which I managed eventually, but I’ve had an easier time with shrink-wrapped pork.

Nigel was now commenting on a cardigan Jane was showing him unless it was all a charade designed to fool me that the whole shop wasn’t observing my embarrassment below the curtain like some grotesque form of Punch and Judy show with legs instead of puppets and the curtain the wrong way up.

‘Any joy?’ the woman on the till said as I pulled back the Curtain of Doom and stepped out of the alcove, nudging past Nigel and avoiding his eyes. We had so nearly cuddled.

‘Not quite the right style for me,’ I said to her, hanging the jeans on the rack.

So, that was two of us who’d lied.

Inside Fran’s diary

Here’s the chat about observational humour I recently had with writer and Youtuber Danielle Krage for her ‘Comedy Masterclass’ channel.

And here's my interview with the fabulous Lucinda Hawksley, the author, broadcaster and great-great-great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. We talk about writing memoir and novels and about the 1976 heatwave, fostering, Arctic Roll, Jackie magazine, teenagers, and much more.

I’m looking forward to visiting a Warwickshire book club on Friday 9 February to talk about ‘Cuckoo in the Nest’. This is one of my absolute favourite authory things to do - either face-to-face or on Zoom - so if your book club has read/is going to read/would like to read ‘Cuckoo’, let me know!