Dear Louise-Ann -
This year, on September 18th, I was 40 - the age at which life begins, or so they say. Or rather, 'he' was 40 - 'she' was a little over 2½. But I digress. One's 40th birthday is supposed to be special, and, as mine happened to fall on a Friday on which a Felixstowe Girls meeting was scheduled, I thought I should do something on the way to the meeting to mark the occasion. But what? I'd been notching up 'firsts' at a rapid rate of late, and was running out of ideas. For instance, I now make regular visits to an off-licence to buy wine, I use the petrol station at my local garage, and I've even dropped in on work once or twice. In fact, virtually the only thing left was to go into my local Tesco's supermarket.
And that's what I decided to do. As it was my birthday, I thought I should treat the girls at the meeting to some cakes and a glass or two of Australian fizz, which gave me an excuse - albeit a rather feeble one - to go through with the plan. On this occasion, as it was my first trip to a supermarket dressed, Mary had agreed to go with me for moral support, so I picked her up at around 6:15, and drove the mile or so to Tesco's. I also had an official photographer on board to capture the event for all time, although he agreed to wait outside the shop in case the store security objected to cameras.
I'd chosen to wear one of my favourite outfits - a white sleeveless tee-shirt, and a red pleated 14½-inch kilt over clear shiny tights. I'd abandoned my sensible courts in favour of a pair of comfortable black strappy shoes with 3-inch block heels, and I thought that a natural-look brunette wig would be better than my usual blond piece which makes me look like I've just got out of bed! But despite my very short skirt, as Mary and I walked the 100 metres from where I'd parked the car to the store entrance, I was surprised that no-one was staring at us. However, once inside the shop, that changed! Just a few metres from the door, I was verbally accosted by a member of staff promoting a special offer on the store's clubcard. Now, this has never happened to me before, and it's my guess that I wasn't a random choice - perhaps this guy fancied his chances with me! Anyhow, I was aware that I was being watched from an adjacent checkout queue, so I told him a number of times politely that I wasn't interested; finally, as this was failing to have the desired effect, I told him to "please go away", and strode confidently off to rejoin Mary.
Well, the rest of the trip was nowhere near as eventful. The major thing which sticks in my mind was the effort required to steer the wretched trolley, which seemed to have a will of its own. It's worth remembering that high-heeled shoes have a smaller area in contact with the ground than do men's shoes, and that the soles are usually much smoother - the result is that high-heeled shoes provide much less traction than a man would be accustomed to. Before I realised this, and learnt how to compensate for it, it must have looked like my trolley was in control! Despite this, I kept half an eye on the other shoppers, although I needn't have worried - the vast majority were too engrossed in their own activities to care about anything else going on around them.
Having chosen the required goods, we joined the shortest checkout queue we could find, and taking care not to bend over too far, I unloaded the trolley. While waiting to pay, I noticed that a young girl working on an adjacent till was watching us nervously, so I looked her straight in the eye and smiled. She looked back, paused for a moment, then broke into a wide grin. I love it when that happens! After a few minutes, we reached the front of the queue, paid, and left the supermarket, where we were greeted on cue by our photographer - hopefully, I should get some nice pictures with Tesco's in the background to prove I was really there [1]!
Extract from a personal letter.