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Club Foyer>Chillout Room>Depositions
The magic of rainwear.... It's what unites all visitors to the Lakeland Elements website I suppose. As you know, I'm a lucky victim of that magic in many ways, particularly when another takes a moment out to see that my own rainwear is fastened properly. This fastening up is fastening with many facets. People say all sorts of things while they are doing your coat up, but sometimes, nothing at all is said.... Not a single word...... These "Not A Single Word" moments have a magic all of their own. It's hard to explain, but I'm going to try, because yesterday, I witnessed another adult experiencing just such a "Not A Single Word" moment... It left more questions in the air than it did answers, so here goes with what happened.
My wife and I took our friends who were with us for the weekend, and the dog to a local beauty spot for a walk. It was quite a pleasant morning, not raining, a bit cloudy - and with a slight breeze as we were up in the hills. The Cloudspotter and all other more formal trenchwear stayed at home with my wife and I (and our friends) all going down the anorak route. We weren't alone, because, as you'd expect in the terrain we visited, everyone was in anoraks/cagoules etc. The side of a mountain is hardly the place for a buttoned up Burberry, no matter how much I'd like it to be.
We had a lovely walk, and on returning to the car, my wife spotted the cafe... It makes great cakes, and she has a weakness for those. We all wanted to go in, but there was the small matter of our rather adoring pooch. He is so adoring that, had he been allowed in the cafe - which he wasn't anyway - he would probably have placed muddy paws on every anorak in sight, ate all the cake and drunk most of the coffee!! After a short discussion, the other 3 went into the cafe and I returned him to the car, planning to come back and eat cake once he was safely deposited with his bowl of water.
As the dog and I approached the car, I noticed two other vehicles parking next to it simultaneously, a VW camper van and an estate car. The camper was lurching about, not being driven terribly confidently, which concerned me a bit as it was inches from my car. Then I noticed the L plates..... and the 17 or 18 year old girl behind the wheel..... She had a large audience inside the camper van and me looking at her.... She stalled spectacularly and muttered to herself..... She struck me as particularly beautiful just for a moment. I admonished myself for this and put it down to an impending mid-life crisis on my part!!
Moments later and she was parked (after a fashion, more lurching and 2 more versions of the stalled engine later!) She climbed down from the van. I would have liked so much for her to be in a trenchcoat. She had the figure for it!! Instead though, she was in a Khaki anorak, which was unzipped.
By now I had the tailgate of my own car open and the dog had jumped in. The party of people in the Camper van were talking warmly amongst themselves, and with the people in the Estate Car. It became obvious that they were all together. Some of them were speaking French and some were speaking English. The lovely girl who had been driving was talking to an older replica of herself, a woman of 50 or so, who had to be "Mum." I noticed they ere English members of the party. All around, members of the party were lacing up walking boots, putting rucksacks on backs, and..... yes....... zipping up their anoraks. I always enjoy watching people zip up their coats, particularly if they happen to run into an awkward moment, which can happen so easily with a fiddly zip. I noticed that the 17/18 year old girl (who was one of the English ones) had left her own anorak undone. She was the only one to do so. She walked round in front of the Camper Van - where she was alone - and brought the 2 sides of her anorak's zip together. Then something odd happened..... She looked round furtively to see if any members of her party were watching.... She took one unsuccessful swipe of an attempt at joining the zips undone parts at the bottom, and allowed the coat to swing undone again. I happened to notice that one lady in the group had seen exactly what I did. A French lady in her late 30's in a bright red anorak. Furthermore, this lady had logged what had happened with an intensity... She wore a look which could best be described as "concerned."
So why was this so strange? Well... Why should the girl be furtive about the fastening process? She was 17 or 18 anyway, so I'd have thought that if she genuinely couldn't fasten it she could quite easily make her own life choice to go undone, rather than risk drawing attention to herself? I said there would be more questions than answers here didn't I???
I looked across at her coat. Over the years I've learned what kind of zips are hard to do and which ones aren't. Concealed jobs like Boden Cloudspotter zips often offer trickiness. This girl's coat looked straightforward though. The zip was a big chunky black plastic affair, and the piece of zip you pull up had a cloth tag on it. These are put there to make it easier to do up aren't they? She really ought to have been able to do it.... Was it a case of she couldn't do it - or was it a case of she didn't want to do it, and enjoyed being helped - a lot like me???????????? A case of her looking for that help to arrive from somewhere????
She left her coat to hang undone and walked back down the side of the Camper Van. She could have walked anywhere, gone close to nobody, or to anybody within the group she was with. Why then did she pick to stand slap bang wallop in front of the French lady in her late 30's in the red anorak...? The lady who seconds earlier had witnessed her aborted attempt at the zip with apparent concern.....
Coats offer a choice... Done up or undone.... An undone coat is normally an unemotional bit of kit. Just occasionally though I have a theory that an undone coat is talking out loud... "Do me up.... Do me up..... Do me up....!" You get this with a trenchcoat on a windy day, when it flaps in the breeze, and is actually more awkward to wear undone than done up. the flapping is the trench's request to have its buttons done. Anoraks shout "do me up" more rarely though, perhaps due to their shorter length. Somehow though, without a word spoken.... (Not a single word......) the girl's anorak was crying out to be done up... Normally an anorak lies flat across the chest, tummy and waist, even when unzipped... Not this one! The front of the coat on both sides was out at almost 90 degrees to her body. Does that make sense?? It was practically screaming......
"Look at me..... I'm UNDONE...... and I ought not to be!"
The girl stood very still, with her coat poking out like that in that screaming, provocative manner... She was just a couple of feet in front of the French lady, on the verges of her personal space..... The French lady was eating Pringles now, popping them into her mouth (quite seductively actually!) one at a time..... She said nothing (Not a single word).... The girl looked up at her for inspiration..... She said nothing either (Not a single word...)
The French lady turned slightly and called across to another member of the party.... "Don't forget the plasters!"
She spoke English then?? So the lack of words between the two ladies had nothing to do with a language barrier... The French lady was eyeing the girl up and down again.... She said nothing (not a single word) but her face had "Tu Veux que Je le fasse????????" written all over it..... The concerned look was there again and I wondered whether "Tu Veux que Je le fasse???" should have had the word "encore" added into its mix. Obviously I don't know if I'm right, but I got the feeling that the French lady had been called to action over this particular zip before, and that she wasn't terribly comfortable doing it up. Somehow I knew what would happen next though, and I was right....... She popped the last Pringle in her mouth and took hold of the girls undone zip on both sides and began joining it together.... It was, indeed, tricky! Still she said nothing, and nor did the girl in receipt of the attention.... Not a single word. The zipping up went on for a minute or so. Nobody else in the group came to help... Not even Mum! The French lady crouched right down after a few seconds of attempting the zip from a standing position... Her fingers went all over the place..... I was very jealous as I'd have liked to have been in the girl's coat for these moments!!! The girl raised both her hands...... "Look.... no hands" seemed to be going through her mind. She looked down helplessly at what the French lady was doing.... Ultimately the zip was done up.... The girl walked off.... She didn't even say thanks..... the French lady said nothing either..... Not a single word...
What was going on here?
Did the English girl go looking to get her coat done up on purpose, because like me, she likes having it done?
Could she genuinely not do it?
If she genuinely couldn't do it, did the French lady believe that - or did she think that this young lady was on a pleasure trip?
Did the French lady enjoy doing it in reality?
Did she have a history of interevening in this girl's fastening process - with or without words?
Why didn't the girl's Mum intervene, particularly during the whole minute it took the French lady to succeed in her mission - particularly if there was a history of that coat proving awkward to zip up?
That's just a few of the unanswered questions... There may be many more. Beyond the questions lies something else too... Two humans communicated without words (not a single one) about a coat, and how it needed fastening, and that non-verbal communication was actually, relatively subtle. Perhaps that is one of the things that can happen that I find so sexy about having a coat done up?
Did either of them find it sexy too.... Or both of them perhaps? I know I did
I suppose we'll never know.
The dog demolished a bowl of water in approval, sitting in the car's boot - and I went and had a splendid piece of chocolate cake.
Andy
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