Tag: confusion

Blocked

I am sitting here frustrated. 

I can’t write. I’m wondering why. I am hitting the keys of my lovely laptop with such vigour Mr W is occasionally looking at me. I know he wants to calmly tell me to go easy. This is frustrating. So frustrating I am allowing the laptop to pick up the errors in my typing rather than sort them myself. I’m usually a good touch typist. I owe that to years of staying up late on MSN Messenger with my friends during my school years. 

I absolutely detest writer’s block. My last two blogs have come from my archive of past writings. It has been a busy month I’ll admit but when I’m stuck I’ll look to life as I know it or past trips and away I go. But today – nada!

Maybe today’s shopping experience has left a sour taste in my mouth and brain. I’d like to share with you one tidbit. Maybe you won’t have heard of it. Maybe it’s something you’ll relate to. Not ALL girls like shopping. I for one will find one staple and buy it in every colour rather than tour around a shopping hall. And I have. During my twenties I had every colour of one particular jumper going. And when the shop changed that jumper’s design I felt attacked! How very dare they. 

When I worked in London, the story was very similar, I would wear one staple dress in various colours, leggings and a jacket or cardigan to suit. I was a slave to Primark and its easy wear items. 

These days, I wear the same two pairs of jeans and choose from my faithful 6-7 tops out of a sea of clothing in my wardrobe. I will occasionally buy a dress for a wedding or a party and it’s the only time I take care in what I’m wearing. I suspect this is because there are other people around and I want to make sure I’m looking the part. Which part that is I’m not sure. Wedding guest. Cousins 30th attendee. Engagement celebrator extraordinaire. 

Last year, I did something completely out of character and bought a vivid yellow casual dress. Did I like it? Yes, enough to buy it. Do I like it now? Completely and unfathomably, I have no idea. It fits, it doesn’t need ironing (always a bonus) however I’ve come to the realisation I don’t even know what my style is.  

If you’re a returning reader you’ll know I’m a big girl. If you’re a first time guest, I’m a big girl. Small in stature. Curvy round the middle. It’s caused by emotional eating (hello poor mental health) and my life long struggle turned-fight with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. So growing up it didn’t really matter what I liked the look of in the shops, it wouldn’t fit anyway. And therein started the problem. Why try and find a style that didn’t cater for the plus size teenager?

Things are a lot better now for plus size peeps. You’ll find a lot online and have it delivered right to your door! Isn’t that swell! But… What if we want to venture out into the world and shop til we drop? To spend money on clothes instead of bills. To bring home pretty things after a long day with friends, shopping, chatting and enjoying it all. 

The last few days, Mr W has tried to push me, ever so gently, into buying new clothes. The vivid yellow dress is the one outfit I can wear without bursting into flames in the recent heatwave. While at home I am the queen of pyjamas and most recently a comfy jogging bottom. Which is fine when you have a fan whirring alongside you but out in the fanless real world, I need some clothes. I had a snoop around online and found a few dresses I liked the look of but I want to see them in person! I hate not being able to feel the fabric and check the length. I ordered a pair of trousers recently and they were definitely not designed for my 5’5 height. I think maybe a height of 6’5 would have worked well. I pulled them up to my bra and went on my merry way. 

Lesson learned.

Tonight, we headed out into the dreaded unknown to find the dresses I’d seen online. Only to find, on arrival, that the store was closed. Disappointed we spent the next hour scouring the shops for anything bigger than a UK size 16 and came away entirely empty handed. Oh wait, tell a lie I got some day cream, body scrub and bin bags! Wahey! 

It’s only now I truly understand that the highstreet does not cater to anyone above a size 16, who does not want gaudy prints or shapeless sacks to wear. What is interesting about this little conundrum is how the UK’s average dress size is a 16. And yet in all shops but 3 today the biggest size they stocked WAS a 16. I’m inclined to think that the only place my money is any good is online. I’ve heard this so many times on the ‘Go Love Yourself’ podcast (link below) but not yet realised it for myself. All this time I thought I was being picky or not knowing my own style but I’ve come to realise today that I’ve grown up not being given a chance to experience clothing like others. 

And that is a very sad situation.

I can hear a few people, there in my head, saying why not lose weight so you can fit into the high street clothes? And the simple answer is, why? Well, and how. My PCOS doesn’t like me thin, in fact it likes to add to my weight whenever it feels prudent to. And there are other women AND men out there who are big for a variety of physical and mental health reasons too. And even if they aren’t big for those reasons, it’s their life, their choice and is their money not good enough?

I came away today deflated, defeated and crying. It’s hard to feel good without being able to project that through clothing. It’s a form of expression. It’s hard to come to the realisation that when it comes to style I have been stifled. As other people have. I assume this is the same for people who don’t fit the ‘normal’ range of heights too. Something has to change. 

Well, would you look at that the writer’s blockage has come unstuck. Now if only the block in shops could be removed too!

Go Love Yourself

Confusion over the carbonara

One of my fondest memories of travelling is not even mine.

It’s Mr W’s. 

Four years ago we took an impromptu trip to Rome. Our first time in Italy.

Rome itself was unexpectedly brilliant in the most simple of places and a little underwhelming in other big tourist draws. I’ll do another blog on those really soon. 

My favourite part of the whole trip, is when Mr W told me of his encounter with the cashier in Caffè Italia on Via Di Santa Croce late one evening. As we had spent the better part of the day walking and visiting, our food intake had been small, and we were starving. We wandered into this eatery only a stones throw from our accommodation and Mr W went to order. When he returned he had the biggest laughing smile on his face. His story went somewhat like this:

Mr W: Hello, I’d like to order some food.

Cashier with a exceptionally deep voice: Sì

W: The carbonara 

C: Sì

W: Margherita pizza

C: Sì

W: The Lasagne

C: (a look up from the till and slightly longer drawn out) Sì

W: A Cappuccino

C: Sì…

W: A cola

C: Sì

W: And a tiramisu 

C: (confusion) Sì

Now you have to really imagine how deep the man’s voice was and how long the drawn out nature of the responses were, but I sat in both hilarity and mortification. It slowly dawned on me that we were sitting at a table designed for two and the food definitely wasn’t. We basically had 1 night to try all the foods on our list. Easy right? We then learned that ordering coffee with dinner is unheard of in Italy. Then there’s the amount of food we ordered. Ah when in Rome eh!

It’s funny how food can make the best memories in the most unexpected of situations.

A few years ago we spent 6 days touring Cornwall and Devon. Another first-time trip. And we had the most glorious weather when exploring Newquay, Torquay and Lands End. We even saw a basking shark while looking out to sea from the Minack Theatre. It was absolutely beautiful. At the end of our trip we stayed in a countryside hotel in Dartmoor National Park. We had decided to spend two days relaxing and taking a few walks. The weather decided to send a monsoon which made driving impossible, let alone walking. Stuck in our hotel on a weekday, we couldn’t stomach the monotonous offerings on the tv and made a dash out into the rain. Mr W found the closest possible small cafe and we spent a good 40 minutes driving the windy roads of the national park. We came upon a small town and splashed our way to food and warmth. We each ordered a cream tea. Baked to order the scones came warm and HUGE, with pots of cream and jam. Absolutely delicious! The owner had relocated from South Africa with her partner to run this quaint place. And we are so glad she did! When the scones were finished, she brought more over, when the jam/cream was finished, she did the same. It became a vicious circle which ended with us unable to walk too fast to dodge the raindrops back to the car. Totally worth it.

On our honeymoon, we treated ourselves to a luxurious trip to the Maldives. The restaurant open to us for lunch and dinner was exclusive to our accommodation and was another luxury we didn’t anticipate but was more than grateful for. Each evening, there were dishes to tempt every kind of palate and a chef cooking dishes to order too. On occasion there would be a one-off menu item that could help yourself to. It just happened to be the last item before you reached the tables. Walking through the well laid out buffet every day to get to your table was enough to tempt you to stay all night. Indian curries, delectable chicken dishes and more fresh vegetables than you can imagine. One particular evening, Mr W pointed out a large piece of meat as we perused the offerings, noticing the texture I remarked that it was Tuna. ‘No way,’ he says, ‘it’s way too big.’ Albeit it, the thing was enormous. But I couldn’t hazard a guess at it being anything else. When our waiter came to our table Mr W asked what the dish was, ‘Tuna’, Mr W’s jaw dropped. ‘But it’s so big.’ The waiter said, ‘We have lots here.’ In a bemused kind of way. I had to stifle a laugh as we both realised we were in one of the largest networks of Atolls in the world surrounded by the Indian Ocean and tuna would have been as a Brit getting chicken or pork. Mr W had his fill and learned a new lesson that maybe, on occasion, his new wife did know what she was talking about!

I like to think that when we eat while travelling we are having the most authentic foods because we are in the place that does it best. What I’ve come to realise and indeed appreciate about the food we eat on our travels isn’t its handmade qualities or how much you get for your money, but how in any language we can connect with other people. Be it the confused Italian, the passionate Devonshire baker or the bemused Maldivian. It reminds me that no matter how far we travel and no matter where we end up there are connections to be made. And ultimately that’s the most tantalising part.