Big pants!

If one is a regular or frequent cyclist, then one develops a keen awareness of the state of one's nether regions. F'rinstance, after a lengthy day on the bike in the rain, with no mudguards, and the chamois padding in one's shorts slowly becoming saturated with gritty water, the realisation dawns that the greatest thing in the world is not Universal Suffrage, or equality, or the invention of the electron microscope. Nope, a far superior thing is this: a pair of clean, dry pants.

And, trying to avoid going in to too much detail regarding saddle-sores and chafing, loose-fitting pants of a French knicker variety can be rather comfortable post-ride - not to mention the convenient lack of VPL that they provide when worn with a skirt. So it came to pass recently that I found myself in need of more pants (mostly due to the cats installing a mouse in the bedroom, which set up home in my underwear drawer and chewed up a number of garments to construct a nest), and went shopping.

I'm British, so naturally my first port of call for underwear was M&S. Much to my surprise, they didn't have any French knickers in the Kingston branch, so I looked online. Even more of a surprise was to discover that they only sell one style of French knickers, and they are a limited edition which are totally out-of-stock. Even so, that's a higher big-pants quotient than any other high-street shop.

Having failed in Real Life, I took to the internet. Surely, I thought, I will be able to find some suitable undercrackers there! Well, it being the internet, rule thirty-four applied. Once I had eliminated all the crotchless peep-hole feather-trimmed cheap nylon varieties of French knickers (and confirmed that no, I did not mean "French Maid's Outfit"), there really wasn't anything there. In fact, the only knickers available were all terribly skimpy and high-cut. This got me thinking. Without going off on a hairy-legged-feminist rant, we live in a society which deems pubic hair hanging out of the side of a bikini or underwear to be disgusting - and yet there are no kickers for sale which fully conceal the pubic-hair region. Are the manufacturers of knickers* in league with the makers of hair-removal products? The people have a right to know! <waves conspiracy theory flag furtively>

Anyway, back to my personal Persnonals hunt: eventually I found some French knickers online. They appear to no longer count as "underwear" and have been reclassified as "nightwear". Irritatingly, this means that they are not available in specific sizes, but are only sold in "small", "medium" or "large" sizes, with a thick elasticated waistband which is not so invisible under dresses as some of my older pairs I am trying to replace. And also, they seem to cost about £80 per pair for silk ones, which is a tad steep.

So if anyone knows where I can buy some non-porno non-pyjama French knickers I'd appreciate being told. Ta. :)

*And the "Smooth Groove Fanny Minimiser" - an hysterically funny product that you didn't even know you needed!