How are you all doing?
Since the pandemic has taken over our lives, I have developed the ability to sit quietly for HOURS at a time doing absolutely nothing. This is amazing for me!
I look back on my previously hectic life, travelling around the country, delivering workshops and rushing home to make giant panda and crayfish mascot suits, illustrate books and make wearable art and wonder ‘Who was that winged woman?’
In the last two years, the World of Wearable art show has been cancelled, and the making of my garment each year informs my calendar. There is a big gaping costume hole in February to May of 2022 for me, though it will be filled by another picture book for Scholastic, so I won’t be totally idle. But I thrive on the adrenalin of deadlines and frantic hours cramming everything in, working right up to the last minute and falling in a heap, exhausted. It’s how I’ve always been.
‘Try Hard’ is a poem I wrote in 2000 for my then regular column in Next Magazine. Back then, I was trying to do it all, nearly 22 years later I think it’s ok to relax a bit. The kids are grown, I’m as rich and famous as I’ll ever get (spoiler alert, R&F is a soul sucking goal to have and never pans out the way you hoped it might).
Perhaps my big lesson to be learned over this Covid time -and into the future, is about pacing myself like my cat does, looking out on the garden and literally smelling those roses and appreciating the quiet moments and being OK with that.
Take care all of you, try less, just be xxx Fifi
Try Hard
Fifi Colston
I try, you know, to decorate,
And have a tasteful home,
I’ve even lime-washed and distressed,
My favorite garden gnome.
I try, you know, to sew stuff;
Be a perfect ballet mother,
But when I make a leotard,
It looks more like a loose cover.
I try you know, to look good
From my head down to my toes,
What a shame, my dress gets tucked,
Inside my pantyhose.
I try you know, to work out,
Spending hours at the gym,
But I really just like lounging,
With a novel and a gin.
I try you know, to tidy
And be a great housewife;
One day I’ll clean the oven,
When I haven’t got a life.
I try you know…Oh bollocks!
I’m trying hard to do without
The Superwoman syndrome,
That wears the mortal woman out.