It's a sure confirmation that you're at least middle-aged, when you're standing at a bus stop in multi-layers of clothes (and wishing you'd reconsidered a hat), on a finger-numbing thick-frosty morning, when a couple of smug-faced teenage girls pitch up in flimsy tee-shirts, loose jackets, cropped leggings with their bare feet in thin canvas trainers.

It's enough to send a shiver down the length and breadth of your extremities!

Do teenagers have anti-freeze in their ankles?

And what is it with those schoolboys you see sauntering jacketless and tieless, sniggering at the stormiest of downpours, and shunning the weather with utter disdain?

Was I ever that reckless?

Oh, I do remember going out with newly-washed long hair - towel-dried - with Mam moaning, 'For God's sake, use the hairdryer! Do you want to get pneumonia?' But then, Mams are always middle-aged. 'Put a hat on then!' I heard her shout from the doorway, when I was already half-way up the High Street.

I couldn't wear a hat. It honestly didn't suit me. All my hair hidden and cramped inside it like that? I felt bald. I preferred my almost-dry hair bouncing at my back as I walked.

For that same reason, I couldn't go swimming. I had a tight, brain-constricting, swimming cap, made worse by the all-over, eye-catching, pink plastic daisies. Not a thing to be seen in, poolside. Others could go there if they liked. Not me.

The only time I wore a hat was to Church on Sundays. But then that was compulsory. No debate allowed.

I wondered what ministers thought of the Mini Skirt. Adults never liked mini skirts. An inch above the knee was seen by them as a respectable length. That was easily remedied on the way to school by tursing the waistband of your skirt over on itself, as often as you dared, to make it several inches shorter!

And I remember reading in Jackie that you could make jeans skin-tight by wearing them in a warm soapy bath to relax the fibres. This was pre-Elastane. Then you had to allow them to dry on you naturally. But not inside cos where could you sit? You could only go outside. I ignored the weird looks. But some older folk nodded in acquiescence. Those were the ones who most probably peed themselves.

All in all, it was a relief to get home and tug and pull the stupid wetsuit jeans off, and get them on the line before Mam suspected anything.

I can't remember too many other fashion dilemmas.

My sis would probably remind of the time that she and Mam met me at the train station, after my first term at Art School. It wasn't the hippie yellow canvas bag with its roped handles that drew their attention. It was the over-sized, long brown fur coat. It wasn't necessarily the fur issue that bothered them, more the coat's volume and ankle-skimming length!

Even when, the next night, I quickly took the scissors to it and cropped it into a jacket, my sis said it was now a worse sight cos the length was so higgledy-piggledy. So what could I wear?

The matter was resolved when Mam gave me her Grandma's black woollen coat from the 1920s. It was in a suicase in the loft. So I returned to Gray's with an authentic vintage coat that fitted me perfectly. Smug face.

I'm not so fussed about following trends now. I wear stuff that is unsuited to my age. Hey-ho. I am unbothered by other people's opinions and preferences. Who wants to be predictable?

However, in winter, my attire has to be cosy!