a sari tale

I first knew I wasn't very well when I got on the bus yesterday morning to go to my Dreamweaver course. Day Two. Just me and the instructor, but that's not how it sounds. I suddenly realised that: a) I had a sore throat and just ached all over; b) I had somehow left the house without a scarf (this rarely happens, even in summer); and c) I was not going to get through even the morning without something wrapped around me: look at my profile thumbnail up there. I wear scarves. Love 'em.

Fortunately, though, the training was in Whitechapel! All was not lost. I had already promised myself a blue-&-green beaded pashmina that was hanging up outside Ranees sari shop, collecting fumes from the road like a lovely souvenir from home for when I go back to Victoria. But Ranees was not open yet so I drifted vacantly and achily through the market all the way back to Whitechapel station (having got off by the Mosque) before finding one. And dear God what a pashmina I have found! It's wool (not viscose, though don't get me wrong - viscose is one of my fave fibres). The colours are . A dark, calm grey, a dove grey, and red, woven into the usual paisley border (Ms B loves paisleys), with amazing sheer panels in the centre - and, in between the sheer panels and the border, these incredible embroidered orange flowers - so vibrant and glowing that you can hardly feel sick while they're around you. It's also longer than my others, so that when you wrap it around your shoulders it stays wrapped.

I said to the man at the stall, how much is this one? "Fifteen," he says. "One five." I'm looking at it, fingering it. "One five?" I say. "Okay," he says. "One three."

I spent the whole day in my training session wrapped up in it like an old woman, feeling dizzy and strange. And then I slept in it too. Sari to say. And spent today at home, wrapped up in it. Wonderful.

On the way home last night I bought the green and blue one. It's viscose. It was £3.99. Boy do I miss that part of town.