READINGS, SCARVES AND DRIVERS

I'd like to know why, whenever I wear a scarf, it always slips off  - are my shoulders the wrong shape?
Was the scarf not long enough? Do scarves dislike me?

Today was a good instance of this all-too-common  happening. I did a reading from "Rise" and other poems at Chester Literature Festival and a lovely coach driver was in the audience: he had just dropped his tour group off and decided to come to my reading for 'inspiration' and to while the time away. As usual my scarf started slipping and I did not notice, until this driver very kindly caught my attention between poems and warned me it was about to drop at my feet. Another member of the audience disentangled me and I cast it aside (I'd only worn it for a spot of colour anyway). It was a happy, shared moment and we all had a good laugh...


But as I drove home afterwards I found myself asking how do other women keep them on? Do they tie them? Have safety pins/ other pins/ glue? What's the secret?
Some women I know wear scarves with great panache and look just right.And one friend has so much panache that she removed her scarf in a bar once, with a great flourish, and it landed on a night-light burning on the table and several holes were singed in its fabric. She has rescued it by sewing round patches of beautiful satiny cloth on it to cover the holes - it now looks fantastic and highly individual, and she still wears it with style and pizzazz.

But me - I've spread them all out on my bed, am scutinising them, and thinking maybe I should simply send them all to charity shops? Scarves and I are not made for each other...