The only photo I have of my paternal grandfather shows him sitting stiffly in a deck chair on some beach. He is wearing his hat, best shoes, a dark suit, shirt and tie. By the standards of the day, I presume, he is well turned out, even if he looks excruciatingly uncomfortable. I know that feeling.
I do own such items of clothing but have never worn them on the beach. I hardly wear them at all. In 1992 I had a suit made for the wedding of Daughter No.1. This served also at the wedding of Daughter No. 2 and is still going strong. It gets very little wear and only sees the light of day for weddings, becoming rare events these days; and funerals, sadly a ceremony we seem to be attending with increasing frequency.
The suit had its last outing about eighteen months ago, for a funeral of course. During the previous two years of hibernation a discrepancy had been created between the waist band of the trousers and the corresponding bodily circumference. It was rather inconvenient since this mismatch was only discovered minutes before we were due to set off to pay our last respects to the departed.
Try as I might, I just could not get the crucial button to reach the button hole on the trouser waist band with me inside them. Long Suffering Wife, who seemed to find the whole situation amusing, refused to attempt any seamstress style alterations and I was forced to attend the funeral with a Heath Robinson repair involving safety pins. I can only hope that my evident distress and inability to speak throughout the event was attributed to the sadness of the occasion rather than the inadequacy of my attire.
Faced with the alternatives of losing weight or buying a new suit, I consulted a Former Colleague who pointed out, in her direct incisive way, that my habitual daily consumption of four or five cups of coffee, each laced with three spoons of sugar might have some bearing on my problem.
And so, for the last six months I have forsworn the white stuff. I have stopped punctuating the day with little pleasures and tried to acquire a taste for the acrid bitter liquid that coffee becomes when devoid of sugar. I have tried it weaker and stronger, black, au lait, with cream, percolated, cafetiered, Turkish, expresso, even instant - it all tastes vile. I have just about reached the stage when I can take a sip without pulling a face; on a good day.
Tomorrow we have another funeral to go to. Liz, one of the sweetest, gentlest souls to grace our world has been taken from us, too soon.
It is time to try on the suit. With regret I have to report that the waistband situation remains the same. The dimension of the discrepancy appears to be identical. Long Suffering Wife points out that giving up sugar would have been more effective if I had not compensated by doubling my intake of chocolate biscuits.
It looks like another safety pin job. Somewhere, far off, I can hear Liz laughing.