Tickled pink

As a feminist, I don't love pink. I'm uncomfortable with its role as boundary marker between 'boy' and 'girl'. I don't like the way computers, bikes, play cars are splashed with that particular, searing shade to signify something as suitable for the girls. But as a person, I love pink. Not Cartland pink, a sad caricature of the warmth and loveliness. And not the pale pink you find on clothes for baby girls. But a deep, bright, rich pinkish pink - oh that I love.



I wear a bit of pink in subtle and small ways but I work in an industry where grey is considered quite a forward kind of a colour and so I try not to splash it about. But I am happy to stumble across pinkness: serendipity pink, like the flowers above, which sit under the gum tree outside my front gate. Or yesterday morning, sitting with the girls down a lane, in the sun, against the low pink fence of an old pink house. Above us deep pink camellias splashed against the winter blue sky. In our laps sat white boxes with raspberry framboise and a berry and custard brioche; we ate them with wooden spoons. Behind us a small bird, not pink but yellow breasted and blue winged, sang and flitted as Nell and I tried to catch glimpse. We sat in the pink of it all, for a perfect few moments. That kind of pink, I love.