More and more I find myself thinking about shawls. There is a lovely moment in "Miss Potter" when she is leaving her cottage and deftly swings a shawl around her shoulders. It's such a natural movement, as though the shawl becomes a part of her the minute it touches her shoulders.
But do shawls fit in with modern life? I must admit I would love to think that I could wear one whilst sitting on our verandah on chilly evenings drinking a glass of red wine or a cup of steaming coffee whilst listening to the sounds of an African night ....but I never do that. Like most people, once the kids are in bed I flop down in my favourite armchair in front of the tv and veg out until bed time. Would a shawl be needed then? I think not.
I also have visions of myself walking along a windy beach with a wonderful lacy creation draped around my shoulders but again, we only see the beach once a year and being in South Africa, even the wind is warm! I suppose I could make one just for our annual beach holiday, but it seems a little extreme.
So why do I hanker after a shawl? I have no real purpose for one and really don't know when I'd wear one. It would probably end up being shoved in the top of my wardrobe and would never see the light of day, but still I yearn .....
I guess I just want to be Miss Potter if only for one imaginative moment, so I will make a shawl one day. Perhaps I'll keep it for solitary moments when I can drape it around my shoulders and pretend I'm her, striding across the fells in sensible shoes with the wind in my hair.
Perhaps I'll just hold it in my hands and think back to a time when cell phones didn't exist and children played outside. When life was physically hard but oh so simple.
Perhaps then it's not the shawl I'm after but the world in which Miss Potter lived.
Never say never ....
