.....the less you wear trousers and the more you wear kilts. All last summer if I wasn't kilted I was wearing baggy shorts. When it got too cold for shorts late last October, I never really went back to traditional tight fitting long trousers but instead began to wear my kilts more. I've probably worn trousers about a dozen or so times in the past year, and until this morning, only once since Christmas. I had to rush to get Ann prepared for her early appointment at the diabetic clinic this morning and she suggested I might save a few minutes by going casual in trousers. Well I thought might as well give these trousers a wearing rather than hanging in the wardrobe unused. My few remaining trousers all had mud around the ankles, either from having caught on the car sills or spattered up from shoes when walking (you don't get this problem with a kilt). but having donned the best looking trousers I could find, I set out. Well almost; a minor false start when one of the belt loops snagged in the door handle on the way out of the house (funny how this never happens with kilts). I felt very self conscious going to the health centre; dressed like my wife in trousers, when I first went in it seemed everyone was staring at me, then once I settled down in the waiting room I realised there were other men there in trousers too. I had a long wait for Ann while she went through her succession of tests with the doctor and various nurses; normally if I had been kilted I'd have ventured out of the health centre for a walk, but today I dare not; how could I walk any distance when I'd forgotten whether I dressed trousers to the left or the right; trousers which would also chafe the thighs once I started walking; and people would stop me and ask where's the kilt today. During my long wait I was eaten up with unhappy memories; of wasted years as a slave to alcohol; since then I had re-invented myself and entered a much happier phase in life so why on earth was I sitting here dressed in the old order of the bad days.

It was so nice to get Ann back home from the clinic and get myself kilted up in my black heavyweight to have lunch and then go over to the court offices for a couple of hours in the afternoon to check and sign the paperwork from yesterday's court.

After my brief trousered foray the kilt seemed even more welcoming than usual and I will be in no hurry to wear trousers again.