A Winter's Wail

Autumn looks so glamorous in the movies doesn’t it? Couples in cashmere beanies laughing with rosy cheeks as they joyfully kick at the leaves on the ground, mugs of steaming hot chocolate waiting for them at home. Then there’s winter – soft sparkly snow falling neatly on window ledges, children making 6ft tall snowmen with carrots as noses. Hmm… it doesn’t really happen like that does it, certainly not in London anyway. You are likely to end up with dog poo on your snazzy boots if you go frolicking through piles of leaves and snowmen simply don’t come in sizes bigger than 3ft and you have to be quick even to catch them at that size before they melt.

Alexa Chung

Coat £59.99 at H&M

Coat £249 at Massimo Dutti

However I don’t mind the cold weather, hats are a great excuse to have crap hair and scarves and gloves can make an otherwise drab coat look really rather chic. My one gripe about all these extra clothes is the rate at which my six year old son gets through them. At his school somewhere there must be an accessory mountain but despite the fact it must be made up of at least ten thousand small gloves, it is entirely naked to the human eye. I had initially thought that the £3.99 two pack of gloves at H&M were a steal until I realised my son lost one glove every three days – not so frugal after all.

Kate Bosworth

Parka £99.99 at Mango

Gloves with ring detail £15.99 at Mango

I have discovered it’s a losing battle. You wrap the little terrors up in all that cheap brightly coloured wool, they moan on the way to school that’s they’re still cold and then when you go to pick them up they come out in a t-shirt waving their coats around their heads gleefully explaining that they last saw their hat on the pirate ship or possibly in the computer room. Finally, at the end of the term the school newsletter solemnly announces that the five truckloads of lost childrenswear will be transported to Africa in the holidays. The children love the drama and outrage of this but not enough to set about rummaging through the lost property buckets to save their lost items. I wouldn’t get so hot under the collar about it only my otherwise small son has a huge head and it isn’t all that easy to find hats to fit it.

Victoria Beckham

Coat £229 at Massimo Dutti

Umbrella £12 at Accessorize

So anyway, the lost gloves made me cross until this week when our heating broke down forcing me into a reality check. I am now sitting here in several layers and a pair of Ugg boots I neither remembered nor cared to admit I owned. I can barely move for thick clothes. You don’t see Alexa Chung looking like a bag lady though do you, or Victoria Beckham, and yet they spend most of their time in New York where the winters are far more ferocious. If they can look fab in the freeze, then so can we.

Kate Moss

Coat £69 by M&S

Scarf £25 by River Island

Let’s embrace the opportunity to wrap up in faux fur and velvet, it’s far less hassle than fretting about toned arms and fake tan after all. Yes, there’s hat hair and the dilemma of how to wear a scarf without getting it stuck to your lip gloss, but personally I’d rather that than melting make-up and strap marks. Also, scarves, hats and gloves can be bought for a song so you can have a set for every day of the week. Oh and if you’re wondering, we have found the lost gloves – one was on the pirate ship and the other on the floor of a cloakroom about a mile away from my son’s classroom. I feel I’ve achieved a lot this week – or I will do once the heating is fixed. In the meantime I’m going accessory shopping. Have a great weekend!