Burkinis, beaches and back on the blog

It's been a while you lovely bunch and it's Easter which is always a dangerous time of year, given its combination of renewal, rebirth, freshness and enough calories to shame Elvis. In other news, my children are still too young to keep an accurate record of their gifted eggs which is frankly their own foolish oversight. I'm a year older and more haggard since my last blog.........I now dye my hair (ginger....seriously, it's like a sort of self flagellation with a L'Oreal bottle)...............I haven't been to the gym for 10 weeks..........something odd is going on with the skin round my eyes. Not necessarily wrinkled but definitely a little rippled and glancing at my reflection in shop windows has become a little bit like shame roulette

There is a moment in everyone's life when you realise that a certain threshold has been crossed. My friends  20 minutes ago, I crossed that threshold. I googled 'burkini'. This little action has sent me on a 20 minute journey to places I NEVER knew existed.........I have encountered the hardline Christian 'Modesty Movement' who (ironically) produce exactly the same style swimwear for ladies as their Muslim comrades but with more emphasis on gingham and a few more frills. The orthodox Jewish ladies are at the top of the trend tree with their sleek almost surfer-like modesty swimwear........ I can't help but feel that the conflicts in the Middle East could actually be resolved through swimwear......humanity's 'sameness' exemplified by a woman from each of the three religions wearing their identical modesty-wear with some sort of slogan:

 "Religion doesn't matter when you're fat and have a beach holiday booked. Put down the guns and love each other- flab before faith'.

 I'll admit that it needs a bit of work but I'd like to think I'm on to something......

Anyway, I digress. As my finger hovered over the 'buy now' button on a particularly flowery number with detachable bonnet, I realised that a line had been crossed. The shock drove me to an Easter egg (one of the smaller ones that TOTALLY arrived under the kids radar- they'll never miss it.......) and to my blog. It has been a LOOOOOOOONG time since I bored everyone. Some hardy souls claim to miss this blog- I both love them and worry about them equally.........the ramblings of a loon.

I have no idea how much I weigh at this point- pondering it too much will drive me to another egg. The truth of the situation is that things are 'snug' and my son spent a 'hilarious' 10 minutes today playing a game of 'boob or tum'........it went like this

"Mummy (points at largest roll), is this your tummy"
"Yes"
"Is THIS your tummy (points at secondary roll which sits above my leggings)?"
"Yes"
"What's this (points at the roll that sits below the largest roll)?"
"Still tummy"
"Nooooooo"
"Sadly yes"
"You got LOTS of tummies Mummy. How many boobs you got?"
"Two"
"No mummy, you got lots of boobs too. 1, 2, 3 (the multiboob caused by ill-fitting bra), 4 (ditto), 5 (he's now counting the secondary tummy roll), 6 (ditto)".
"Mummy, you got lots and lots of boobs and tummies. Youz funny lady. Ha ha ha ha"
*silent despair and brief contemplation of child abandonment*

I'd like to point the finger of blame at Vermont......because I ate the entire thing whilst on holiday there last month.......then I washed it down with a week of Canadian goodies............I'm guessing that it's very probable that by the time I got back, my weight didn't start with a "1" in the stones section............I would also like to add that the GREATEST THING ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH is the Dessert Table tradition at Canadian weddings. Here in the UK, we might get a few chicken legs and a sad looking pork pie at about 10pm at an average wedding. Not in Canada, God bless 'em. We get the buffet BUT THEN later, an ENTIRE TABLE of cakes, desserts, sweets, candy *dribbles at the memory* is brought out. They provide 'takeaway' boxes if you need more storage space (I had removed my tummy control undergarments at this point due to them being taken beyond the point of usefulness- I had no idea that lycra could creak........... storage was therefore not an issue for me.........I had room for growth). It was a more joyous moment for me than any other in recent memory (wedding day and birth of children pale into insignificance when present with unlimited desserts.......). I frikkin love Canada.

Anyway, I have a modesty birkini in periwinkle blue, with matching bonnet in my shopping basket which requires my attention. I wonder if they do it in purple too.......