Yes, it’s true folks. I am immeasurable. This I discover at a session in Maggie’s. I can’t remember why I am there – that is, I knew at the time but have since forgotten. I am not completely simple (yet). One of the workers – and I am sure there is a better name but cannot think of one – asks me if I would like to join a session on prosthesis and bra fitting. This sounds just right. I have had dire sessions in a variety of ladies’ lingerie departments with women who claim to be trained in fitting a post-surgery bra but who seemed incapable. The one exception was at Rigby and Peller but although they do fantastic lingerie, they do not make pocketed bras and I would have to have a pocket sewn in. After shelling out over £60 for one, I do not feel inclined to pay for a pocket. Note to Rigby and Peller – get your act together and you could clean up. Their fitters are superb; lovely women dressed in black and with a really good attitude. They view you with a gimlet eye and then produce a garment in the right size.

So, having been to Marks and Spencers twice (and the service the first time was so bad the fitter reduced me to tears and I complained to the MD – would he really have wanted his mother or sister treated like that?), I decide that expert fitters would be just the job.

Someone has brought cookies and a fantastic cake with a bra on it in silver sprinkles. I love the extra touches and the trouble people go to in order to give us a good experience. So people are sitting around drinking tea and chatting, looking through catalogues and in the corner are 2 ladies with a rack of bras and swimsuits and a small queue of women waiting to be measured. I am carrying lots of bags as I hadn’t envisaged being measured but dump them quietly in a corner and wait my turn. When it comes, I have to pull up my camisole and top, my cardigan being kindly lifted by the lady behind. The woman looks at me disapprovingly. “Oh, you’re wearing one of those” she says. I am wearing a kind of crop top, Aah bra, Genie bra type thing. Anything else is rubbing and opening up my wound. “It doesn’t do anything for your shape” she says, helpfully. I start to wonder if this was a good idea. She produces a tape measure and begins to take measurements. After 3, she eyes me and offers her opinion. She says it as a question, a number with a query at the end as though I were testing her. I smile and say “Yes” because she is the one who has just measured me so surely she must have confidence in both her skills and what her tape measure tells her.

The problem with her measurement is that it varies in to other measurements I have had and now, between them all, I vary by a whole 6″. How can I be 6″ either way? 6″ is an awful lot to vary by. I smile and take the catalogue she offers and slink off, knowing I am immeasurable.