This man wants to woo me...

...And he's written me a letter!

‘Oh, I wish people still wrote letters! Weren’t letters great?’ It’s such a boomer thing to say, isn’t it? I start wittering on about the marvellousness of writing paper and envelopes and see young people glazing over and plotting their escape.

For a brief moment during covid times it looked like letter writing was making a comeback. Youngsters, I read, were writing to each other in the old fashioned way. But actually the ‘trend’ comprised three young people who sent one letter each, grew tired of the no-letter-in-return scenario and not a single one has been written since.

Apart from this one!

Okay, it’s not handwritten but it came in the post delivered by an actual postman, in normal daylight hours. It wasn’t thrown in the vague direction of my address at 11.20 pm.

I rip it open to discover that it’s from…

JOHNNIE BODEN.

Yes, Johnnie has written to me! Not just to say hi and certainly not to offer me free clothes, which I’d be happy to take off him. Even though on me they never look like this:

But like this:

Trouble is I fall for the whole ‘not especially young but still super-attractive as she swishes through life’ vibe that Boden pumps out. Yummy mummy? They invented her, skipping through a French market in Opal Fruit colours (Boden Woman remembers Opal Fruits). Boden Woman never has bad hair days, hangovers or hormonal sweats. She has no hormones at all, because she is not a living person, but a shiny-haired bouncing lady-mannequin clad in tea dresses and jaunty raincoats.

These items turn up at my flat, where it’s raining - not in a picturesque Boden way but in a Glasgow way - and someone has dumped a defunct deep fat fryer on my doorstep. Yes, the garments are as advertised. But why haven’t they brought essence of Boden with them? Where did it disappear to, en route?

And why aren’t I like this…

But actually this?

Embittered, I fell out with Boden a couple of years ago and haven’t bought anything since.

Occasionally, I’d find myself pulled into the website via a Facebook ad and there I’d spy a brown cardigan with an £85 price tag and laugh hollowly. ‘Oh I don’t think so Johnnie!’

I didn’t think anyone at Boden Towers would notice I’d gone. But now the letter has come.

SORRY ABOUT THE BORING ENVELOPE, it starts.

It’s okay Johnnie! We’re adults. We can cope with it being made of boring paper and not smocked and covered in ditsy florals.

Dear Fiona, it starts.

Remember me? Ginger hair, makes nice clothes?

OMG it’s like an old boyfriend texting drunk in the night. ‘Hi Fiona just thought I’d say hi hope all good!’

No, not even a boyfriend. Just - shall we say - an ‘encounter’ from long ago.

‘Hey remember me? We met in Dublin in 1985—’

My entire body spasms and I look around wildly for a window to throw myself out of.

At least it’s not that. At least with Boden it’s just a corporate thing, despite efforts to disguise this with the ‘daft bumbling ginger who gets in the way at the office’ nonsense.

In fact, all Johnnie Boden wants to do is remind me that I haven’t flung any cash into his vast coffers for a while.

Note that he signs off his letter as ‘Founder and Chief Fusspot.’

Also note that his handwriting looks like that of a kid practising his ‘grown up’ signature on a jotter.

He is offering me ten quid off if I buy anything, but it’ll take more than a measly tenner to lure me into buying stripy T-shirts and tangerine shorts.

Mind you, the swimwear… OH MY GOD IT’S GOOD!!!

Even though the reality is this:

Damn you fusspot Johnnie. I hadn’t really dumped you.

We were only on a break.

Love,

Fiona xx

PS Looking for a novel to sweep you away while you’re lounging in embroidered cheesecloth and espadrilles? You can order my latest here!