Hello everyone,

So I went to that funeral yesterday, and paid attention, for the first time, to what other people were wearing. There was much less black than I had expected, but on the whole very little colour. Many women were wearing cream or beige or some other light neutral, and it looked totally appropriate. The men wore dark suits, for the most part, although I was surprised by how few of them were also wearing a tie. Only one woman looked (I thought, anyway) wildly inappropriate, with her extremely short black dress and black fascinator hat exuberantly bedecked in foot-long feathers, but she was very young, so can perhaps be forgiven.

In the end, the weather cooperated -- it has cooled down enough that I had lots of choice in what to wear -- so ended up choosing a a charcoal tweed midi-length pencil skirt, a sleek black blouse (which I wore tucked in! gasp!), my black "1930s" pumps (with lace-up maryjane strap) and my grandma's coffee-coloured pearls, wrapped twice to sit up above the collarbones. And here's the funny comment: After the service, I was introduced to a number of people whom I had never met. One woman, as I shook her hand, turned to my mother and said, "Goodness! Your daughter looks like *such* a lady!". I think it was the "conservative" pearls, haha.