Life in UK by Fromfuntomum
Hope you all had a nice week. The guest post for this week comes from the lovely italian lady that writes From fun to mum blog – Ellen Brooke. On her blog she writes about her life as a stay at home mum and she posts lovely pictures with her daughter G. So pop over her blog and you will not be disappointed. She even has a Sleep training Blog Hop. If you want to chat you can always find her on twitter too – her handle is of course @from_fun_to_mum.
With no further mumbles from me here is her take on Life in UK:
There are a lot of things that I could talk about, I have lived in London for nearly 12 years after all, but I would like to discuss the very first thing that I noticed about living in the UK. Brits do not understand what coats are for! Especially those under 30.
I moved to London in the autumn. I had a suitcase packed full of scarves, wool jumpers and not one, not two, but three coats! One need coats in winter! From the smart variety to go to work in, to the more sporty puffa variety (and much warmer, might I add), from the short biker jacket to the proper sky jacket…the fashion world is full of coats! They are often the most expensive piece of a fashion collection and there are brands that mainly do just coats and jackets, and add garments and accessories as an extension of the brand. Belstaff, Moncler, Barbour and Woolrich spring to mind and they are all amazing coat brands.
So, back to 12 years ago or so, I am out with Mr H on a cold Saturday winter night and I am wearing layers of warm clothes and a nice proper coat. The British girls around me are wearing short skirts with no tights, tiny jumpers and no coats! I was shocked. I understand that the point of a date or the point of a girls night out is to look pretty, but I would never imagine doing this at the expense of my health. As an Italian, there is something fundamentally wrong to the practice of not wearing coats in the winter. I am from the North of Italy. We get seasons, from cold winters to boiling summers and we have seasonal wardrobes for it. How can British girls not feel the cold? Men are just as bad, to be honest. I know that when wearing a suit one has a jacket, but said jacket is not exactly a coat in the winter months. The mind boggles…
This very issue troubled me for a long time. I was reminded of it every time someone came to visit from Italy and was just as shocked and confused as I was. Mr H told me once that dating me was like having to wrap and unwrap a present all the time. (I admit to sleeping in full length PJs come winter or summer, often with a ribbed tank top underneath, and cashmere socks in winter). How was it humanely possible that my British counterparts did not feel the cold?
I asked and asked that question, and these are the answers I got through the years. Of course NONE of them makes sense to me, but here they are, pretty much verbatim:
- I wear a coat in the day, but if I am out at night, I won’t as they charge money in cloakrooms and I might be too drunk at the end of the night to remember about it. Plus I am from Manchester, we are tough up there! (woman, mid 20s)
- I wear a scarf with my suit as I can’t be bothered with a coat in the tube, it gets too hot, plus the scarf keeps me warm anyway (man, early 30s)
- Coats are for old women and sensible mums, I just wear a hoody and look cool (girl, teens)
- Coats are too expensive and I use my money to party! (woman, late 20s)
- I have a trench coat and that gets me covered at all times, winter or summer (man, late 20s)
- I am pregnant / breastfeeding / running after a baby, so I am always hot (woman, late 30s)
- I am from Newcastle, we are real men up there! (Man, late 30s)
- I take my kids’ coats off when they want to run around the park so they don’t overheat (mum, mid 30s)
I could go on for a long time as I do truly find myself asking the coat question to this day, 12 years later, but I won’t.
Please, British Men and British Women, get yourself one coat and wear it. You make me cold just to look at you! Coats are not garments made for an older age group, they are one of life necessity in winter months, they really are.
2 Comments
Actually Mummy
Hee hee I can just see her puzzled face as she contemplates the ‘ladies’ of the Newcastle clubbing scene!
Katie Vyktoriah
Lol. I totally agree that a coat SHOULD be worn in the winter, but I do find that if I’m going out of an evening, I’ll usually leave it behind. I grew up with winters that involved having to shovel tunnels through 6 foot snow drifts just to get out of the house, and we had to invest in our own snow plough just to get the car out of the garage… So to me, the mild English winters are fairly easy to ignore.
That said, I always bundle up me and my child on a day to day basis. 😀