When I moved to Japan I put a lot of my clothes into vacuum packed bags.  Today I decided to go through the ones that aren’t open yet as I need to find some storage space.  My bedroom is full of clothes that I like, but don’t fit.  And since I managed to put on the wrong jeans today, and they nearly slid off as I was taking a parcel from the postman, I need to sort this out.

I’ve also decided that if I can store something in a plastic bag for nearly four years that maybe I don’t need it, or won’t want to wear it again.

I had three large bags of clothes to go through and it took me a few hours as it’s just too hot.  It’s too hot to carry arm loads of clothes and much too hot to actually try the clothes on.  But in the end I got through them.  I have some things that I will keep that don’t get worn often, like evening dresses, and I also have my wedding dress and some clothes that have sentimental value.  The rest of it appears to be mainly winter clothes that do actually fit, but I’m not sure how many I should keep.  I threw out a whole bag of ugly as really I don’t need to keep ugly clothes in my closet.  I had a suit that appeared to be in RUC green.  It’s a truly horrible muddy green colour and the suit is now in the bin. (For those people who didn’t grow up in Northern Ireland, RUC stands for Royal Ulster Constabulary, and used to be the name for the police force.)

I also had some clothes that I have never worn.  I had two pairs of three quarter length trousers that looked ridiculous.  I think it’s because they are actually too long, and end up looking like trousers that are a bit too short.  They make my legs look huge as they accentuate the large muscle at the back of my calf.  I could alter them but I don’t like short trousers and they would have made ugly wide shorts.    I have no idea what I was thinking when I bought these, but I was probably trying to find something that could be described as summer clothing.

Actually after spending the afternoon in my closet I think I hate clothes.