Birthday Rain & Other Adventures

My Mum always tells me about my first birthday. It was a beautiful sunny day and so we had a tea party in our garden, with all my Mum's friends and my new little friends, and the Mum's spent all day worrying that we were all going to burn. 


Since then I seem to remember April Showers always making an appearance on my birthday and it being decidedly grey and rainy most of the years. Now I LOVE a good summer thunderstorm. I love the smell of rain on hot ground. I think it's a lovely way to spend an evening watching an electric storm when your wrapped up inside a duvet and all safe inside, but it's not fun when it's your birthday and you want to go out and the rain just encourages people to stay in. 


On birthdays at the Nakuru Baby Orphnage in Kenya, the children traditionally get 'washed'. This is a cleansing of the past year and a fresh start to the new year. I've never been visiting when it is one of the 
children's birthdays, but I've heard that they are more of a full on water fight rather than a simple 'cleanse'.

(check out www.missioninaction.com.au)

Although I seemed to have always picked rainy seasons to go to Kenya, a lot of the year it is really warm and dry and so the rain can be really welcomed.  


So maybe that's what's happening to me in the UK? The weather is inadvertently cleansing me from the things I've been up to in the past year and then giving me a start for the next year.


I've been lucky enough to be in some exciting places for my birthdays, never through my exact birthday planning, more making general plans which happen to fall over my birthdays. 


My 16th birthday happened to fall on the same day as a trip to Alton Towers, which was fantastically fun, and the first time I'd ever been...but of course it rained...a lot!


And I don't think any of my friends will let me forget my 18th birthday when I dragged about 12 of my friends down to  Ilfracombe to go camping and it rained almost the entire time! And camping in the rain is just never as much fun as in perfect sunshine. 


Then my 19th birthday was spent in Rotorua in New Zealand and was fantastically fun. We went to a smelly sulphur thermal spa and boiled ourselves, and then partied in a ridiculously empty pub/bar until we ended up in a campervan with some boys we'd met....so no rain this year! The first since my 1st birthday I think which was very exciting! It meant me and Lizzy could wander home in our flipflops at silly o'clock in the morning, only to find that our pillows had gone missing (they'd been hidden in the fridge and after a warm, drunk evening theres nothing better than a chilled pillow!).

(worlds worst timer photo!!)

My 24th was spent in Panama, where you were sweating just lying in bed and not even doing anything. After a day of yoga, zumba, Spanish lessons and making fresh pineapple, coconut and rum cocktails, we headed over to one of the islands which has a club on it set out over the water on some decking. When we got too hot and sweaty from dancing, with the free drinks for ladies, you could climb up onto a platform and jump into  a whole cut into the decking, so kind of like a swimming pool in the sea! I suppose it had the same effect of being very refreshing and cleansing, but it also was really exciting.

(too sweaty!)

With April this year being incredibly hot (I was paddling in the sea last weekend) I was wondering if and when the weather would break to bring my traditional birthday rain. Although at lunchtime it clouded over very heavily and looked as if we could have a summer shower, but it held and we spent a lovely evening on the Southbank, (where there is a beach) with cocktails and dinner sitting outside - Perfect.


So, maybe my spell of birthday rain is coming to an end. I'm guessing it's down to global warming and less rain in general, rather than the idea that maybe I've been more well behaved in recent years and so need less cleansing.....    


  

Body Proportions

Since writing my dissertation on body shape and size in comparison with culture, and how this is portrayed in the media, I have been fascinated with the different sizes and shapes of bodies.

We were watching a 'Super Nanny' special in my flat last week and there was an extremely overweight boy who was trying to lose weight. His Mum was being told to measure him at regular intervals to check how much weight he had lost, as this was more accurate then weighing himself.

Although I know a lot of older people who tell me that back in the day they had a 24 inch waist, nowadays, I think almost everyone I know goes by Dress Size and would know that they were a Size 10 for example, not not what their waist and bust measurements were. Well everyone assumes that they know what their bust measurements are, going by their bra size, but I am sure that most people (me included) are wrong.

So after watching this programme, I decided to measure various bits of me, just to see how I compared to this extremely overweight boy (thankfully I'm a lot smaller!). I'd always known, I don't know where from, that there were certain body proportions, such as your foot is the same length as your forearm, and that your arm span is your height, and then I'd always had the idea that your wrist is half the circumference of your neck, and your neck is half the circumference of your waist.

I was thinking about this as I was walking back from work last week and trying to stare at peoples necks as I walked past them..to compare to their wrists. I realised afterwards that I probably looked a little odd, and I started to think that maybe I'd been wrong. My wrists look tiny and my neck is pretty chunky. Yet I remember when we were younger making a choker that fitted perfectly around my wrist twice, and making a beaded belt that was twice as long as a necklace.

So I got my tape measure out and started work. The first thing I discovered is that my thigh circumference is only a little smaller than my waist! That's seriously worrying! I clearly have massive thighs!!

But the wrist-neck-waist thing is true (at least on me!). My wrist is just under 6" in circumference, my neck is 12" and a bit and my waist is 26" (when I haven't been eating too much at the weekends). It's mad. My wrist look tiny and so I just can't get my head around the fact that my waist is only 4 and a bit times larger? Weird.

And my chest circumference is over 4" smaller than the bra size that I wear...but I think I would be suffocated if I bought one 4" smaller - that would be ridiculous, but makes me think that it must be true when people like Trinny & Susannah say that 90% of the population wear the wrong bra size.

Strange.....now I'm off to research if there are any more strange but true proportion facts!

Amy doesn't shop at Primark?

A friend said to another friend in passing conversation the other day...'Oh, Amy doesn't shop at Primark'. And it is true, I used to boycott Primark and would never consider shopping there.

I had never really heard of Primark when I was at school as I don't think it had quite spread to England then. OK, so I've just researched that and apparently Bristol and Derby were the first towns in England to get Primark stores and this was in 1974 so it obviously was around, I just wasn't aware of it.

Anyway, it wasn't until sixth form when I got a bit of allowance and started buying clothes for myself that I bought a few vest tops there. Then, when I went to Kenya in 2005, Dee, an Irish girl who I was staying with raved about Penneys and couldn't understand why I wouldn't shop there more.

The children we were teaching in Kenya lived in the rubbish dump nearby and this really made me think about the throwaway culture that we live in. I've always been a squirrel who keeps clothes for years and I get very attached to them but I knew a lot of people who shopped at Primark as they thought of it as disposable fashion. This was one of the reasons that I decided to stop shopping there, as I don't like the idea of buying something to wear just once. It is true that some Primark clothes are so poorly made that they do only last a few wears and so this was another reason why I decided to stop shopping there.

When I got back from Kenya, I headed off to Portsmouth for uni which didn't have a Primark so I didn't really think about it too much more.  Then, when one opened, everyone was wearing exactly the same things. I love looking a bit different and mix and match clothes that I've bought from all sorts of different shops all over the world and so hate the idea of going out and seeing three other girls in the same dress as me.

Primark was exposed in 2008 by Panorama for using child labour in India. They were quick to counteract this by insisting that the work was being subcontracted out by the factories, and that they had no idea that this was happening and discontinued working with those suppliers. About the same time, I watched a series called Blood, Sweat and T-shirts on BBC which showed Primark Tops being hand beaded by small children, but alongside items from other suppliers.

So why does everyone think Primark is so much worse?

A friend's mum said to me recently 'Ooh I like your cardigan, where's it from?'. When I answered 'Primark' she was horrified and said 'You do know where Primark clothes are made don't you? and I replied, 'Yes, in the same places as many other high street stores'.

I read an article on Times on-line, entitled, 'Are more expensive clothes made in better conditions?'. Whilst you would assume the high end high street retailers pay their factory workers more, hence the higher prices this is simply not true. So how does Primark manage to sell their clothes so cheaply?

There is one reason, which you don't really think about. Advertising. Most retailers spend millions on advertising but Primark work by word of mouth. Think about it. Have you ever seen a Primark advert. The answer is no, because they don't need to. They are already so popular because of their cheap prices, that they will never need to advertise. Also, they have such short runs of items, with clothes directly copied from the catwalks, that they rarely have stock left to sell off in sales. Both massive money saving techniques.

Primark are fighting back against the 'anti ethical' status so much that they have even asked the Ethical Trading Initiative to check through their audits and their supplier conditions and are working to improve workers pay rates and conditions.

So the answer, if there needs to be one, is yes, I do shop at Primark, because there is nothing to make me believe that they are any worse than any other high street store. But I don't by one off wear items, I buy 'classic' items which I know I will wear for a long time. Well, until they wear out at least.

Bring them to me...continued

So my second shop that I want in England is American Eagle Outfitters. I supposed it's kind of like a less poncy Jack Wills but with more colour. Lifestyle clothing. Me and Lizzy developed our addiction when we landed in America in 2005 for the last bit of our Gap Year and of course, needed more clothes.

I love backpacking, and I love the ease of having one going out outfit, so there's no hassle of deciding what to wear on a night out, but it does mean that it is incredibly tempting to buy lots of clothes, when you've been wearing the same few tops for the last few months.

My first purchase was a lovely blue T-shirt and a pair of knickers. You don't really think that new knickers are that exciting, until you've been wearing the same 10 pairs for months. For my birthday last year, Lizzy sent me out a parcel with some new knickers in and it was so so exciting! The feeling of wearing brand new clean knickers is just heavenly.

I sent some to Emma in China last year just before Christmas and got a very strange look from the post office lady when she asked me to fill in a customs declaration form...

Anyway, I then headed back to New York with uni in 2007 and added a few more American Eagle items to my collection.

Their clothes are soft, colourful, well made, comfy and I still love them today. Open one in London please!

Bring them to me...

Another Boden related post - Sorry, but I do spend all day there so it's hardly surprising that I talk about it. Anyway, we get lots of requests to open up Boden shops all over the world which made me think...which shops would I like to open up in England.

Back in 2005 I discovered Urban Outfitters in New York and was very very excited....and luckily it wasn't too long before they opened up in Birmingham and then London. So who should be next?

I have 2 very close choices. Cotton On and American Eagle Outfitters. I first discovered Cotton On when I went backpacking in Australia in 2005. Having been away from home for the grand total of only about 5 weeks when we reached Brisbane, we decided there was nothing for it but to add to our rucksacks. Amongst other things, including lots of presents to send home, I bought a mint green Cotton On Vest Top with a white bird print, and a Grey Mini ish Skirt.

I still wear both of these items today, and although the print on the Top is a little cracked in places, and the Skirt a bit worn and faded, they are definitely both wearable!

I think I would describe Cotton On as similar in style to H&M basics, but so much better quality, for around the same price. There can't be many high street shops that make clothes which after 6 years of regular wear (and parts of that intense backpacker wear which means prolonged dirt and dust and hand washing!) still look good enough to wear now.

So when I headed back to Sydney on a short stopover on my trip in January 2010, as I'd been travelling through dusty Africa for 3 months by this point, I was in need of some new, nice clean things to wear.

And Cotton On didn't disappoint. I bought a beautiful spotty Skirt, which was definitely too smart to be shoved into a backpack (it developed terrible creases from being so squashed), and some cotton tunics which were perfect for everything, and some Shorts. I think the Skirt was around $25 AUD, the Shorts were $10 and the Tunics $7 each! Bargain!

So maybe we should start a campaign for Cotton On to open up a shop in London?