Running. Running. Keep on running to try and get closer to the hot air balloon. As hard as I tried this was as close as I got. In the photo it looks so small. Odd sizing.

Only two hours work today. Really could do with a few more hours. But that’s the price you pay for having to work to a zero based contract. What I miss out in terms of money is balanced by the flexibility it affords me. I’m lucky it’s run by good honest people. On the way back home I called into the supermarket. The shop has over the last few days introduced a new car parking layout. After two minutes of unsuccessfully trying to park I realised the problem. Unless you are driving the smallest two seater then your car is going to be too big for the parking bays. Clearly the shop only wants to attract those with car boots the size of glove compartments. Odd sizing.

Is it so difficult for running shoe manufacturers to actually use a shoe sizing standard which applies to all trainers. Each manufacturer seems to have a slightly different definition of what size 9 is. That’s UK 9 or EU 43 or US 9.5. Yet depending on which brand I go for sometimes I need to buy a 9. Then again sometimes it has to be 9.5. Then again 8.5 has been the best fit. That’s even before we go down the line of feet width. According to some manufacturers I’m wide, some think I’m standard and one company think I’m narrow. This is all fine as you can try them on in the shop. But what happens if you need to buy them online because they are so much cheaper. It’s a nightmare. My new trainers came today. With New Balance I’m either a 9 or 9.5. So I played safe and went 9.5(wide). And guess what they are too pigging small. So they have to be sent back. Deep breath. Along with Son’s new coat. Which was too small even though I went two year sizes up – so he could grow into it. Ha ha. Very odd sizing.

Yesterday was the school bag apocalypse day. Every two weeks we have one day which requires separate kits for Drama, indoor PE and outdoor Games. The day also involves Design Technology with its own wheelbarrow full of items. On top of this he needs to bring the bucketload of daily required school gear including books and iPad. And then as Monty Python would say ‘just one more wafer thin mint’ – room needs to be found for his lunch (as school can’t guarantee that he will be given food). Poor kid was sent in with two extra large rucksacks packed to busting. Too busting for his plastic lunch box. So with trepidation the food is sent in a food bag. Asking for trouble.

Dad I look like I’m carrying a parachute and a paraglider.

No wonder when he comes home we have rucksack chaos resulting in sports kit being scattered over a 15 mile radius. Even accounting for lost items you can still see the forces building inside the bags like an overheating pressure cooker. The seams fighting not to burst like The Hulks pants. And at the bottom of the last bag is his uneaten packed lunch. Due to the Black Hole type conditions at the bottom of the bag the packed lunched has been compressed into a fraction of its original size.

“I take it you didn’t have your packed lunch.”

No after PE it was missing in action.

“Did you get a school lunch then.”

No by the time I had got everything back into the bag the queue was too long for lunch. So I just gave it a miss.

“You must be starving. What do you want to eat now”

Super size bowl of cornflakes with a mega packet of crisps. The biggest banana in the house washed down with a pint of orange juice. Then the biggest bar of Cadbury’s chocolate as second helpings.

****

That’s an odd sizing order I can finally sign up to.

55 thoughts on “Odd sizes”

  2. Each company and country has a different way to size clothes and shoes. In US there is a thing called vanity sizing when the call a bigger size a couple of smaller size. To make us feel better about our size, I guess. 😛🤣

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  3. With clothes, I usually buy from the ‘mens’ department because ‘womens’ sizes are never right. The proportions are wrong or they’re too small. I’m an odd size I guess… 6′ tall. I wear pajama or sweat pants all winter so men’s works. Plus, I like the pockets, I dont carry a purse.

    That school is ridiculous. Their priorities…🤬 I hope son are the chocolate bar first. He deserves to have the treat first!

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      3. Listen re food, you talk to the mother of a child who ate nothing but crisps and digestive biccies till she was seven. And yeah I got hauled into the school to explain the contents of that lunch box. Take what they got cos the bottom line was she had got to 7 on that.

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  6. I have no idea what school timetablers think.. Mine weren’t much better 😦

    Are there lockers at school? Could he split the bags up a bit? Something like: take sport kit in on Weds and back on Thursday, take dt in Thursday and back on Friday? (I used to leave indoor pe kit at school for several weeks because I didn’t sweat that much and you don’t get especially dirty during indoor pe)

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  9. That’s a lot of stuff to carry! Hope he stuffed himself to complete satisfaction, poor guy missing lunch. Uggh! I have the same shoe issues. I always buy mens shoes as they are wider and I like colors more. I have NO IDEA why, because I am a girl, shoe designers automatically assume I want a pink or purple shoe. I don’t. So, I always have to figure out that conversion as well, and I always forget, Hoka’s run a bit small. Hope the next pair fits you better!

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      1. I feel like I have tried every shoe out there and then I realize I never have tried New Balance. I like the Hoka Bondi’s they have the most cushiony sole which helps me and all those stupid foot injuries I have had over the years. We wear the same size (ish) too. I have a 10 ladies foot but in the Hoka that translates to a 9 or a 9.5, and for some reason I always forget and get an 8.5. Hopefully I just cemented in my brain the right size!

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  12. Sounds like your son needs a freaking wheelbarrow to tote all that stuff around. Wow, that’s a lot! And there isn’t any standard sizing any more. I remember once when such things existed (and I pine for those times, when life was simpler and things actually fit). I like the last bit a lot, especially Cadbury bars. 🙂

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  13. Sorry but the rucksacks for your kid — priceless. I used to marvel at the amount of weight in my kids’ elementary school backpacks but they never did anything like your son! Also I’d like to lodge a complaint about a school that doesn’t guarantee your kid can access food.

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  14. About those shoe sizes … methinks they are purposely doing this … it is a conspiracy of sorts … they can put less leather into a size 8 than a 9, so if they call an 8 a 9, they have saved on shoe leather, y’see? It is the same principle as a pound of coffee or bacon. A few years ago, a pound of coffee was 16 ounces, but then all of a sudden it was only 13 ounces. A pound of bacon, likewise, was once 16 ounces, and is now 12 ounces. But … the manufacturers toot their horn and tell you how lucky you are, for they didn’t raise the price! Now, some people buy that theory, which is how they get by with it. Sigh. Odd sizes, indeed. Oh, and a 5-pound bag of sugar is now only 4 pounds.

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