Net Curtains and Pretty Dresses.

Trust Chloe to come up with the prettiest dresses of the season. Lace is everywhere. Scrumptiously crisp or soft and floaty, I am just hoping that is going to spell "net curtains" in the world of interiors. Oh I know they are not fashionable.  I know they reek of suburbia and nosy neighbours, but oh, done well, they can be so utterly lovely…

I, like everyone else, am still hankering after the funeral garb that is a Pearl Lowe black lace tablecloth. I love that dark dusty look, but there is a teeny part of me aching for Spring. For washing lines and lemon bleached nets soaking in the laundry room…

This is I suspect, not an aesthetic thing: the minute I am presented with something pale, I ache to drape it in dark florals, to throw a fringed black gypsy scarf over bleached wood and to change the lightbulbs for the gentle glow of an orange shade. I don’t do white well at all.

Instead I think this sudden hankering for the net curtains of my childhood is about domesticity and nostalgia. It is the memory of that pure white dress I wore on Golden jubilee day as a little girl. A yearning for home. For ankle socks, and pure white pumps. For the joy of the kind of sun that only existed when we were kids, filtering through the nets and casting lacy patterns on the floor. For a moment when all that really matters is watching the breeze blow those net’s into the room and knowing you are safe.

I’d forgotten just how miserable Winter can be.