Winter: the dress is red velvet, trimmed with French lace. In candle light it seems to glow like the embers of a dying fire. A small silk-eared Spaniel hides beneath the skirt's rustling folds. When I pull the dress over my head I inhale the scent of frankincense, balsam, wood smoke and mulled wine.
Spring: the dress is the green of a newly-minted leaf. Made of silk-lined linen, the pockets lined with moss, it exudes the smell of bluebells, rain showers, the lambing shed, dank vernal pools filled with mating frogs and toads, wild garlic.
Summer: the lawn dress is dyed the blue of a mid-summer sky, embroidered with sunflowers that turn me like a dial, following the sun's blaze across the southern sky. The pockets are full of sand, swallows, ripe strawberries, ham and cheese sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper. When I dance on the solstice the dress soughs like the wind stirring a meadow of uncut grass. It smells of hay, horses, mint.
Autumn: the dress is russet and gold, woven from soft merino wool. Falling leaves slip past the hem and drift beneath my feet. I kick my way through them as I walk into village. The pockets are lined with squirrel fur and filled with chestnuts, wet autumn gales, mugs of warm cider, a notebook - its pages blank - and a leaking fountain pen. I sit down on a fallen tree, watch the rooks tossed up like tea leaves against the pewter sky, and I begin to write.
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