The other day I decided to sort through my remaining pairs of tights to see which were wearable and which should be sentenced to cloth recycling.

This involved trying on every single pair of the twenty or so I found, to make completely sure they a) still fit me and b) weren’t full of holes.

After only a few pairs I realised something interesting – trying on tights is exhausting.  Their name is entirely accurate – they are tight and most pairs do not slip on and off easily.  Those which do are priceless beyond rubies and should be treasured for all time (or until they completely fall apart).

Mostly though, you have to wriggle in and out of them using a lot of effort and care in order to get your foot way down in to the foot shaped bit, without tearing the material, then carefully rolling/pulling the remainder up, hoping against hope that the crutch will actually align itself comfortably with your crutch and the waistband will stay up above your expanding waistline.  Then finally you have to gently coax all the wrinkles upwards, again trying not to tear anything, so your legs look vaguely respectable.

After I’d repeated this process three or four times I was sweating and breathless, just like I am after a good aerobic workout.  By the time I’d tried all of the adjectival things I needed to lie down for half an hour.  (The good news is they all fit and only one pair had a hole in it.)

So I realised there is a gap in the market for a new exercise routine involving this activity.  I plan to call it “Tight-ercise” (or, over the Pond, “Pantyhose-ercise”, but that just doesn’t have the same ring, in my honest opinion).