Being the dedicated and loyal Grazia-reader that I am, I happily and quite excitedly parted with my pennies already by 9am this morning in exchange for my weekly fix of news, gossip and fashion. Just the perfect amount of reading vs pictures for a busy mother with little time over for magazines.
My luck was very much in my favour this morning as my toddler daughter decided to have a snooze in the pushchair at 9.05am which gave me the rare chance of sitting down in one of Totnes’ cafes outside in the sunshine with a tea, a sinful but very nice croissant and Grazia magazine. Those moments come so infrequently that they are enjoyed in almost a magical way when they do appear. By that I mean the combination of all four components together, the four being daughter sleeping, tea, croissant and Grazia. On an individual basis tea is enjoyed several times per day most days, croissants far too often if wanting to loose last few baby-pounds and Grazia… well, a few 10-minute sessions per week… if I am lucky that is. Come Monday night I normally speed-read it to justify buying the new weekly issue the following day.

However, the 20 minutes of bliss that I had to myself in the sunshine today nearly ended in me choking on my croissant when I opened the page on ‘We’re flat out again’ followed by ‘So long leggings, hello treggings’. Two styles which I really struggle with and would have been happy to see the back of. Whilst my unreasonably small shoe-collection (definitely needs rectifying soon!) does sport a couple of flat pairs, they really do no favours to my legs and have both been acting as slippers over the past year. On this particular topic I DO agree with Victoria Beckham as stated in her cringe worthy documentary that she would rather be dead than being seen in a pair of flats.

Then there are the treggings (no official translation yet available) which is apparently, according to Grazia, ‘leggings with a bite’. ‘A lovechild of trousers and leggings’. Like the sound of it just not the look of it. Once again, I need to refer to Victoria Beckham who is wearing a super-slick sequinned pair of treggings in the picture which makes her look fantastic and much more curvaceous than her normal size 4. Probably more like a size 8, which straight away make the alarm bells ring. Whilst Victoria looks great two sizes bigger, the success would not be as grand on my two logs of legs and childbearing hips as I would reach a teenage-number double-figure size.

Digging out some old clothes the other day, my pre-baby Diesel jeans could pretty much act as a pair of treggings they way they cling to my flesh every inch from the hip and down. Trust me, that is not a good look, as my friend Rachel would say.
Perhaps with fewer croissants I would one day reconsider my options and sneak a pair of treggings on, just in time for them to go out of fashion and I will be safe for another few years and can happily continue enjoying my French patisserie.

Some of us are just not made to be vacuum-packed.

Written by Malin Hosie