People can be mean about a lot of things; when I was a girl it was because I had to wear a neck pillow once because I’d had an accident while playing and needed it for support.

But one of the things they can be most mean about is mocking dressing gowns. Yes, that’s right. When I was a young girl I could wear a brightly coloured dressing gown, or a pink dressing gown, or one with cute little rabbits all over it. But nowadays, as a grown woman, I have to be extremely careful who I let know about my passion.

And it isn’t as though dressing gowns have gone out of fashion, that’s not the problem. It’s more that those awful all-white ones—the kind that should only be worn in health spa’s—have become the status quo. It is for this reason that the coloured ones that I love so much have been left behind. It is a sad state of affairs. One that I fear will never change.

But I still have my collection, so as long as my house doesn’t burn down, and nobody for The Society For Ban All Coloured Dressing Gowns petrol-bombs my house, I should be OK. But here’s the thing: the other day at work we all started talking about dressing gowns and what was good, and I accidentally let it slip. “I have one hundred and they’re all different!” I announced to the office. Everyone stopped. Then someone said, “Honestly?”

My face went quite red. And that was when the mocking started–In future I better be more careful!