James Hannah

In the con­tin­u­ing saga of the car­a­van, Jols and I have landed on a date of 15 Octo­ber to meet up with White Stuff to take deliv­ery of our Princess Nova and pose for some pro­mo­tional pho­tographs. The beard is com­ing along well, after a slight set­back when I had to shave it off for the Roads Ahead book launch.

While work­ing out the finer points, Georgie from White Stuff men­tioned: “Of course, we’ll want you dressed head-to-toe in White Stuff clothes. Head off to the near­est store and get some ideas about what you’d like to wear…”

It will come as no sur­prise to you that it takes a sit­u­a­tion of the gravest seri­ous­ness for me to haz­ard even a foot towards the chang­ing rooms. I found myself in the Shrews­bury store, loaded up with a full five items to try on. Jols, for her part, flung her­self into the task, and stag­gered up after me prac­ti­cally buck­ling under half a hundred-weight of White Stuff’s autumn collection.

“Oh my god,” the assis­tant actu­ally muttered.

One quick expla­na­tion later, and by now ensconced in a packed-to-capacity chang­ing room, Jols was sub­se­quently referred to in hushed, rev­er­en­tial tones as “the car­a­van lady”.

It didn’t take me long to decide on my choice (by which I mean: I’m a man; we’re all the same shape; we’ll wear any­thing), and I set­tled into a nearby chair while Jols bus­ied her­self behind the cur­tain con­jur­ing up some White Stuff magic.

We felt a bit bad depart­ing the store hav­ing bought noth­ing, and leav­ing the staff to put the place back together – but the real work is yet to come: my wed­ding pho­tos remind me it’ll take more than magic to wedge a com­fort­able smile into my face.

“Cheeeeeese…”

j