Rousing news, Fashion-wearers! Picnics are now occasions which justify new outfits! According to the newspaper, you should get your husband to wear a pink and very hideous bomber jacket in satin (£490. Yes!) with matching pink trousers. You should wear the world's most unflattering sunglasses and horrid pink cardigan which picks up the colours of the man's trousers. Try to emulate what the model has got on here which is a "green and white check wool and silk body-suit £460, with red and white puppytooth silk-mix shorts." Well well. Who would have thought such things existed?
Later, change in to a not-warm-enough pale blue jersey and tie on a frumpy nasty-coloured headscarf to make yourself look like some old bat off Coronation Street.
If the weather forces you to abandon the picnic idea, make sure your husband keeps his sunglasses on in the Tea room. Get him to change out of the pink stuff though. Take the opportunity to put on a leopardskin minidress. Always carry a leopardskin minidress with you for times such as these.
If the picnic goes ahead, change again. This time show off your feminine, frivolous side by wearing a 100% silk dress - a long, golden one. Who cares that all the threads will catch on the brambles, that you will be cold, and that when you sit down it will show the dirt and let the stinging nettles sting you through the flimsy fabric? At least your husband has had the sense to bring some champagne. [There doesn't seem to be any actual food at this picnic. Real picnics involve a lot of unwilling people having to lug masses of heavy equipment across miles of hostile fields, usually uphill in my experience.]
Actually: In real life, for a picnic you should wear clothes you don't care a bit about. They needn't look nice. All you require is that they should keep you warm, dry and unprickled, and they should be machine washable unlike that handwash only at 3degreesC silk number. Otherwise your picnic will be uncomfortable and you will fret throughout about the thistles getting near the organza etc. Take waterproofs with you as it is bound to rain.
We are not told what shoes these picnicking fools were wearing but I bet they were silly ones and totally inappropriate for the terrain. You want stout walking boots and thick socks; trust me. Picnics are always cold and the ground soggy and full of vicious spiny plants.
Here we see a real picnic. Notice that the protagonists have got a drinks cooler, whose contents are the sole object of their attention. Boy in left foreground wears torn off trousers with holes and filth. His shirt has not been ironed in many a year and is not tucked in. He has removed his boots to expose socks that are holey and too small for him. Boy (right) wears tatty hoody (2/- from the jumble sale), and unironed trousers in sore need of a visit to the washing machine. Neither boy has brushed his hair since the days when their mummy used to do it for them. Sun not shining. Bracken and thorns everywhere. Basket (lower left corner) betrays presence of FOOD that has been brought to the scene. Mind your figures, everyone.
After the picnic go home and warm up. Put on some dry clothes. Check for ticks. Seek medical help if necessary. Have a few stiff gins.
