Monday, March 21, 2011

Paradise

I am such a lucky girl ! Once again, I have the time, space and freedom to express my femininity all I want. Yes, my wife has gone over to the UK and could be there for while. If she stays till I arrive in Mid-May, this will have given me nearly two months of paradise ! However, (and there is always a however) I won't be entirely alone in the house the whole period because my daughter is coming to visit me for a week in April and my son might pitch up here sometime during the two months for a three week work stint - sent by his company. So, the two months might reduce to one or even less. Also there is now a distinct possibility that my wife will curtail her visit. In fact she could be back any day !!!
With all these reservations going through my mind as I drove back from dropping her at the airport last Thursday, I felt compelled to begin my transformation immediately. That evening, I put aside my male clothes and didn't wear another drab item until Monday lunch time - three and a half days of Paradise !
The weather was very hot to begin with which made it uncomfortable to wear a lot of clothes and make-up. In fact, I wore a bikini much of the time and tended to dress and go shopping later in the day. Shopping for girly clothes is fun but I am not easily pleased with what is out there and have come back empty-handed each time ! I would love to have a friend to help me choose ( and also to pay - eh ?) Clothes are soo expensive and I only have a meagre pension. My mind boggles at the number of outfits so many of you t-girls seem to own. Most appear in a new dress every time I look at Flickr and it makes it very hard to keep up with them. The only way is to borrow the clothes that I find here in the house, supplement them with my very limited stash, and then mix and match. Not quite the same as coming up with brand new items all the time. Some of you clever things, have found that the charity shops in the UK have wonderful garments costing almost nothing. I havn't explored that here in SA yet. There is only one second-hand clothes shop in town and I am not yet confident enough to enter it "en femme"
Talking of confidence though, mine has definitely increased. On Sunday (Day three of my new Sarah-time) I played around too long before getting ready for my outing. Here in backward Africa, the shops open on Sunday for a short time only - most shutting firmly at 4pm By the time I was ready, it was already 3.30 so I drove to my nearest mini-mall, only to discover that this particular one closed at 3pm ! So I pushed on to my favourite mall which has lots of shops and a cinema. Arriving at 3.50 didn't give me any time to choose anything - silly girl ! (I am not nearly as good at this shopping lark as real girls.)
Anyway, as a compensation, I decided to try something new. I had brought my camera with me and took the plunge to ask a nice kind-looking lady passer-by to take my photo at the entrance to Woolworths. Now for those of you in the UK who have never been to South Africa, you must know that Woolworths in SA is the brand name for Marks and Spencer - not to be confused with Woolworths shops that no longer exist in the UK !
The picture she took was a bit blurry but here it is:-
I felt very pleased with myself at apparently passing for a regular woman shopper and decided to try again.
This time I walked on a bit and asked a couple of teenage girls if they wouldn't mind taking my picture. They obliged with a good one, albeit not full length, but at least it was quite sharply in focus - and no camera-shake. I really expected to hear some giggles from them as I walked away; their keen eyes will surely have spotted something. However once again, nothing seem to happen. Perhaps I missed their amusement or perhaps, just perhaps, I wasn't read !!