With nothing to lose, here are my thighs

The left thigh I can hear sloshing about, filled as it is with bitter tears and a sluice of self-pitying misery. The right thigh is a concrete lump I may have levered off the side of the A14 heading to Ipswich.

Clearly, the only thing to be done beneath both is to entomb the flaccid dangling bits up to knee-height in cheap plastic boots the colour of a table leg (as you can see, table legs are considerably more shapely). Whatever their condition - OK then, pallid winter white, knobbly bits and cellulite - you might also see that I still keep my knees gripped together like a good grammar school girl.

Yes, all is hopeless, as usual. But it is Spring. The blackbird says so, turned mad by unfamiliar warm wind and weak English sunshine, banging its face against my window. Of course I'm taking some of the credit for that because the blackbird's not getting all the glory. The loss of birdbrain directional control was probably helped by Grit thrashing about up a ladder with the Windolene because, as I said, it is Spring. And I have been cleaning up house.

Which brings me back to the thighs. Because it is Spring I must robe the revolting puffy things that stick out of my torso - but which I admit are incredibly useful for locomotion - in something other than those once-black-now-grey jeans which you can also see in this very fine photograph.

I have thrown those black jeans out twice, putting them into the bin both times. And then I have gone and got them out again. Both times.

Once, in a Sydney apartment, last year. The same apartment where I set the fire alarm going and peeled off my face. Just as we were leaving - and a good five hours after I rolled up the black jeans and stuck them in the bin - I fled back inside again in a panic attack, wrenched the jeans out from under the coffee grinds, and stuffed them in Tiger's luggage.

Of course she screamed about that particular shocking violation, but tough. I couldn't fit them in my trolley because I was carrying 15 books and 10 CDs on the history of the British empire that I'd picked up cheap in Port Stephens. Which was why I was throwing out the jeans in the first place. And because they are ragged, pitted with holes, thin, and worn out.

I wondered whether that moment had revealed a fear of abandonment and need for security. I think it might. Or maybe it says I am just very tightfistedly mean. I should put my hand in my bank account, go to the shops, and buy a replacement pair.

I like to think neither are true, and that somewhere along the line I actually once liked wearing these jeans. I can go one better, and wonder if I even thought I looked quite good in them, in the right level of daylight dimness, peered at through squinty eyes.

I know that looking good is no longer true, mostly thanks to the elastic going and that time I suffered the temporary bowel control issue. But simply considering that one afternoon, probably several years ago, I may have thought to myself, They look nice! has made me never want to part from them, ever. These moments are rare. So rare, that it may explain a wardrobe filled with clothes that no longer fit, are 20 years out of fashion, or are held together with sticky tape. Because once, I liked them.

Perhaps I can hope that they will die on me while I am wearing them. That might be a suitable way for us both to go. But maybe I need to be brave. I will try and pluck up enough courage this time to part with them for good. To spring clean my thighs, and go to M&S to buy another pair of Per Una jeans.

Hmm. I really don't suppose, M&S, that you would care to donate a similar pair free to robe the plump and blotchy Gritty thighs? Then just for you, I may label that photograph Thighs by M&S.

And I don't look like her on the right. But you can bet I wish I did.
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