The Booketry

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Fashion. Clothes. Body image.

In the past five years or so I’ve put on several extra kilos. Also, since the C-section, my body looks different. My abdomen sort of lost whatever shape it had before my pregnancy.

After that a chronic condition hit me and I put on so much weight in only three weeks or less (I have photos to prove it) that I couldn’t wear jeans. And I had only just managed to get them on after I had the twins. I can wear jeans now, fortunately.

Then on top of that the pandemic. No more long walks, but instead chocolate, ice cream, cheesecakes, mousses… 

So extra weight on a flawed body.

That got me thinking about fashion. Clothes. Most fashionable clothes are ugly rags, meant for young, fit, perfect bodies. And when I say young I don’t mean late twenties or early thirties. Teens, early twenties. They must buy these clothes to make statements. ”Look, I’m young, fit, perfect. I can afford to buy this fashion.”

It occurred to me that I want reasonably priced clothes that are cleverly tailored garments meant to flatter even less perfect bodies. In my colors. 

Lately I’ve looked through my wardrobe and found that much in it doesn’t suit me. At least some do. 

And I’ve studied people around me. What do they wear? What might I wear to look a little better?

I learned to be brave. Let some of my defects show. Many women or young girls look like me. In my worst moments I refer to myself as a walking sofa cushion. Well, if I look like that, many others do too.

So what do I have that helps me look better?

Some examples: 

A pair of slightly too small indigo blue yoga leggings. They’re actually better than expensive shapewear. 

A really pretty blue dress, with a flower pattern and a detail that cleverly hides my defects to some extent.

A denim blouse that covers my arms in short-sleeved or sleeve-less tops. 

My sister went out there this morning and took some more photos of the creepy vines and the trees. She thinks it’s ivy and willow trees. I’ve read that willow roots are tricky so it might be the tree’s own roots that have invaded the dead tree trunk. It looks like something out of a horror movie.

A little update about our caravan, which, I have learned, is also called a travel trailer and a camper. We've been able to make almost everything work, except the water in the tap at the sink. The heating works - a bit. Sometimes it's too cold, sometimes too hot and occasionally, just right. All in all, everything works great. We still love our little home. I know some people actually live in their caravans/campers but most of those people probably don't have kids. For us, it's enough that we can stay in it while we're settling a few things here and on similar outings.

To make it more comfortable we'll probably buy a few things like a tent. I'm not sure what it's called in English. It's a special type of tent that you attach to the side of the caravan. Some of them can almost double the space you have access to, and some are actually made for use all year round. I'd love to have one. So we'll see how that goes. Since we're not staying for very long, and it rains almost every day we might not unpack the tent until we get where we're going to be staying for a longer time.

If we are. If we can get a 'real' house we can put the caravan/camper away in a garage or barn or something for the winter. If that's the best thing to do. Apparently, we have to worry about damp. So it might be better to use it or at least sit in it regularly during the winter and open a window. There's so much to learn, but almost eveyrthing we've done so far, has turned out to be quite easy.