An illustrated letter about getting your afternoons back

AT 68, I'D STARTED CANCELLING EVERY AFTERNOON PLAN AS SOON AS THE WEATHER WARMED UP. MY FRIEND SAID, "IT'S NOT THE HEAT, MAGGIE. IT'S WHAT YOU'RE WEARING."

Every year, round about the middle of October, I become a morning person.

Not by choice. It simply happens. The Perth sun starts to show what it's capable of, the afternoons stretch out warm and bright, and somewhere around two o'clock I start to wilt like a lettuce left on the bench.

So I do everything early. The shopping by nine. The garden by ten. Coffee with friends at half past ten, home by midday, curtains drawn, fan on, feet up.

And anything that happens after lunch, I quietly cancel.

I didn't notice how often I was doing it until last Sunday week. My friend Barbara rang to ask if I was coming to the afternoon concert in the park by the river. A local brass band, a few food stalls, everyone on picnic rugs under the trees. Our little group goes every spring.

"Oh, I don't think so, Barb," I said. "It's meant to be twenty-nine. I'll only melt."

There was a pause on the line. Barbara was a nurse for thirty-five years, and she has a particular way of pausing that makes you feel as though you've been caught hiding a biscuit.

"Maggie," she said, "that's the fourth thing you've cancelled this month. The garden tour. Helen's birthday afternoon tea. The ferry to South Perth. And now this."

"It's the heat," I said.

"I don't think it is," said Barbara. "I think it's what you're wearing."

"Everything you own is polyester, love. You're not melting because it's twenty-nine. You're melting because you're wrapped in plastic."

THE LABELS I'D NEVER READ

I laughed at her, of course. Then I hung up, went into the bedroom, and did something I'm faintly embarrassed to admit I'd never done before.

I read the labels.

My good navy blouse: polyester. My floral summer dress: polyester and elastane. My "lightweight" travel trousers: polyester. My lilac top that I always thought felt a bit clammy: one hundred percent polyester, and the tag said "hand wash cold," which I had never once done.

I went through the entire wardrobe. Out of twenty-odd tops, dresses and trousers I wore in the warmer months, exactly three were cotton or linen, and two of those were old T-shirts I only wore in the garden.

I sat on the end of the bed, surrounded by labels, and felt rather foolish.

I'd bought most of those clothes because they didn't crease, didn't need ironing and dried overnight on the line. All very sensible. But I'd never once thought about what it might feel like to wear them on a warm Perth afternoon.

THE AFTERNOONS I'D GIVEN AWAY

What upset me most wasn't the polyester. It was the list Barbara had rattled off.

The garden tour I'd been looking forward to for months. Helen's seventieth birthday afternoon tea, which I'd told her I couldn't make because of "a bit of a headache." The ferry trip to South Perth with the girls, which I'd skipped for no reason at all except that it was hot.

I'd been giving away my afternoons, one by one, and calling it sensible. And the strange thing is, I'd started to think of it as just part of getting older. That at sixty-eight, you simply do your living before lunch.

But Barbara is older than I am, and she's out every afternoon of the week. Bowls on Tuesdays. Aqua aerobics on Thursdays. The pub quiz on Friday nights, where she is ruthless.

So it wasn't age. It was me. Or rather, it was my clothes.

WHAT BARBARA KNEW

I rang her back that evening and asked, a bit sheepishly, what she wore in the warmer months.

"Cotton," she said straight away. "Always. Cotton or linen. Loose, so the air can get in. Short sleeves, so your arms can breathe. And pockets, so you're not lugging a handbag around and getting a sweaty shoulder."

"That's very specific, Barb."

"I spent thirty-five years on hospital wards in summer, Maggie. You learn what works."

It sounded so obvious, written down like that. A loose cotton dress for warm weather. Women have been wearing them for a century. But somewhere along the way I'd swapped mine for things that were easier to wash and quicker to dry, and I'd never stopped to ask what it was costing me.

FINDING THE KWANI IN GREEN

I'd ordered from Perth Boutique before, so that night I sat down with Barbara's list beside me: cotton, loose, short sleeves, pockets.

For once, I didn't look at the pictures first. I read the descriptions, looking for one word. And I found it in the Kwani Easy Casual Flow Dress.

The listing says it's 100% cotton, soft and breathable. It's a relaxed midi dress with a round neckline and short sleeves, and an A-line shape that the listing says skims the body without clinging. And it has two big, deep pockets on the front of the skirt. In the photographs, the skirt gathers into soft folds around them, which gives it a relaxed, rounded shape.

Cotton. Loose. Short sleeves. Pockets. Barbara's list, all in one dress.

It comes in black, orange, beige and a deep, soft green, the colour of eucalyptus leaves after the rain. I didn't hesitate. I chose the green.

WHEN IT ARRIVED

It came on the Thursday. I took it into the bedroom and laid it out on the bed, and the first thing I did, before anything else, was check the label.

Then I did something rather silly. I held the fabric up to the window and looked through it, the way my mother used to check a sheet for thin spots. It wasn't see-through, but you could tell it would let the air in. And it felt completely different in the hand to my polyester things. Soft, slightly textured, a touch matte, with none of that slippery coolness that turns clammy the moment you sit down.

The green was even nicer in person. A deep, calm green, not bright, not dull. It made me think of the shade under a gum tree on a hot afternoon, which seemed very appropriate.

And the pockets, I'm happy to report, are generous. My phone, my sunglasses case and my keys all went in, with room to spare.

HOW IT ACTUALLY FIT

I'll be honest, as I always try to be. I'm sixty-eight, comfortably rounded in the middle, and I have very little patience for clothes that cling.

There's no size chart on the listing, so I chose my usual size. If you're unsure, it's worth asking the shop before you order. In my usual size, it fit comfortably and loosely, which is exactly what I'd hoped.

The shape doesn't grip anywhere. The round neckline sits easily, the short sleeves rest over the tops of the arms, and from the bodice the skirt gathers into soft folds that fall away from the body. When I moved, I could actually feel air moving round my legs, which I hadn't felt in a polyester dress in years.

On length, it's a midi. On my five-foot-five frame it came to about mid-calf. Long enough to sit cross-legged on a picnic rug without any worry, short enough not to trail through the grass.

I stood at the mirror for a while and turned from side to side. It's a simple dress. But in that green, with the pockets and the soft gathered skirt, it looked quietly lovely. Relaxed, but not careless.

SUNDAY BY THE RIVER

On the Sunday morning, I rang Barbara and told her I was coming to the concert after all. She said, "Good," in exactly the tone she must have used on patients who'd finally agreed to take their tablets.

I wore it with flat tan sandals, my straw hat and a pair of sunglasses. Phone in one pocket, keys and lip balm in the other. No handbag. Just a folded picnic rug under my arm and a container of Anzac biscuits.

It was twenty-nine degrees, exactly as forecast. The sort of bright, blue Perth spring afternoon that I'd been hiding from all month. The park was full: families on rugs, children running between the trees, the brass band tuning up under a white marquee by the river.

Barbara and the girls had saved me a spot in the shade. Helen, whose birthday afternoon tea I'd missed, stood up and gave me a hug, and I felt a little guilty all over again.

Then we sat. And we stayed.

We stayed through the band's first set and their second. We stayed while the sun moved across the sky and we shuffled the rugs to follow the shade. We stayed through the ice-cream van, a mild disagreement about whether the trombonist was the same one as last year, and Barbara's lengthy account of a Friday pub quiz question about the Habsburgs.

I didn't wilt. I want to be careful here, because everybody is different, and a dress isn't a miracle. But I felt cooler than I had all month. The cotton didn't stick to my back when I leant against the tree. The loose skirt let the breeze in off the river. And without a handbag on my shoulder, I didn't get that damp patch I'd come to expect.

For the first time this spring, I was still sitting on the grass when the band played its last song.

When it was over, around five, Helen turned to me and said, "It's nice to have you back, Mags." She didn't mean the concert. She meant the afternoons.

THREE THINGS I LEARNED

Read the label before you blame the weather. I'd spent years assuming I simply couldn't cope with warm afternoons any more. In my case, a good part of the problem was the fabric I'd been wearing. I'd never once thought to check.

"Easy care" isn't the same as easy to wear. I'd chosen my clothes because they dried quickly and didn't crease. Very practical on the washing line. Much less practical on a warm afternoon by the river.

Small choices quietly shape your days. I didn't decide to stop going out in the afternoons. It just crept up on me, one cancelled plan at a time. Sometimes it takes a friend with a nurse's bluntness to notice what you've stopped noticing.

ABOUT THE PRICE, PLAINLY

I've always been careful with money, and having just discovered how much of my wardrobe is made of plastic, I'm feeling more careful than ever. So here's what I know.

When I'm writing this, the Kwani is listed on Perth Boutique at $69.99 AUD, the same in every colour and size. The listing shows a regular price of $179.00. I can't speak for that higher figure, only for what I paid, which felt fair for a dress I've already worn three times in a week.

It comes in sizes S through to 5XL, and in black, orange, green and beige. There's no size chart on the listing, so if you're between sizes, it's worth getting in touch with the shop first. Delivery was free, sent with Australia Post, and the shop lists a money-back guarantee. Do read their Returns & Refunds page before ordering, so you know exactly where you stand.

Barbara, I should mention, has already informed me that I'll be needing a second one for summer.

WHAT I WOULD TELL YOU IF WE WERE FRIENDS

If we were sitting together on a picnic rug, under a tree by the river, I'd ask you to do one small thing when you get home.

Go to your wardrobe and read the labels on the clothes you wear in warm weather. Just read them. You might be surprised, as I was.

And then think about the afternoons you've been giving away lately. The invitations you've turned down, the outings you've skipped, the "maybe next time" that never quite comes.

Some of them you'll have turned down for good reasons. But some of them, perhaps, you didn't need to miss at all. Not because you're too old, or the weather's too hot, but because you were wearing the wrong thing for the day you wanted to have.

The afternoons in spring are some of the loveliest hours we get. It would be a shame to spend them all behind drawn curtains.

I thought I'd become a woman who could only live before lunch. It turns out I just needed a cotton dress and a friend who'd tell me the truth.

With love from Perth,
Maggie