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When I am an old woman
I Shall Wear Purple
With a hat which doesn’t go, and
doesn’t suit me, and I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer
gloves and satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall
sit down on the pavement when I’m tired and gobble up samples in shops
and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and
make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the
rain and pick the flowers in other peoples gardens and learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat and eat three pounds of
sausage at a go or only bread and a pickle for a week and hoard pens and
pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep
us dry and pay our rent and not swear in the street and set a good
example for the children. We will have friends to dinner and read the
papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little
now so people who know me are not too shocked and surprised when
suddenly I an old and start to wear purple.
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