Hanging On…

I have been haunted all week by something I typed in Thursday’s post – “I need more than seventeen hangers”

But do I really? How many clothes does one person need? I’m told that Mother Teresa only had three identical saris, and Mahatma Gandhi had just one shawl and loincloth – and they managed. But there are problems here

• I have worn a sari, and found it somewhat restricting – if I moved too enthusiastically, it started falling off, and it seemed to drag on the ground, however securely I tried to hoist it at the waist.
• Loincloths? No way! I struggle, in the privacy of my own bathroom, to keep myself decent wrapped in a bath towel. The Amish may eschew buttons as a sign of pride, I rely on decent fastenings to maintain my modesty.
• What did MG wear on washday? Did he somehow wrap the shawl round himself when his loincloth was laundered and vice versa?
• A loincloth and shawl ensemble is not appropriate for the sort of life I lead here in cold wet Britain, [even MT was seen wearing cardigans and a coat on occasion]
• I need different clothes for the different parts of my life – I would not wear the same outfit for Sunday preaching as I would to wash the kitchen floor on a Monday. And I wouldn’t wear the same clothes when helping messy 5 year olds to paint as I would to go out for a meal with Bob. Then there are ‘specialist’ things like running shorts and motorbike leathers.

But the fact remains that I think I still have too many clothes. So I emptied out the contents of the wardrobe onto the bed. I discovered I had more of my original blue floral hangers, lurking under jackets, and a few more wooden hangers awaiting padding and covering.

I’ve done the all the padding and covering, and sewn on a few more buttons to hold skirt loops. So now I have just over two dozen pretty padded hangers – and everything hanging on them neatly. I’ve retained two metal 5-bar hangers which hold my jeans and leggings, and a couple of plastic 3-bar ones for shawls and scarves. And my wardrobe looks neater and tidier without all these…

I also have a bag of clothes for the charity shop, and a vast collection of plastic hangers I no longer need. Perhaps the charity shop can use them too?

And I am determined to operate the ‘one in-one out’ rule if I acquire any more clothes. I am not planning to purchase anything though – there are plenty of outfits there to be going on with.