Embarrassment is My New Religion.

It's not just the parents who embarrass...

 When you are young, there are many things to be embarrassed about. Your name, your spots, your family' bright yellow banana box of a thing they called a car, the whole catholic church going burden you have to tow the line with. And then you get older (let' skip the twenties because even those aren't 'proper' adult years anymore) and you come to realise that those embarrassments have come to hold a place in your heart. The British holiday you once abided has come full circle. You are loving rainy Devon, windswept Norfolk and the damp beaches of Wales, where your parents would drag you to the wet beaches and publicly ridicule any petulance you might dare to exhibit. The once dull, uninspiring weekly market in the East Anglian town where I grew up, piled high with shockingly un-with-it clothing stalls and frightening grannified undies, is reassuringly welcoming and the honest 'say it how it is' approach of my parents and their cohorts is a tonic.

 I think when you come to witness these new joys in your life you are probably finding your own self. I'll always be drawn to the aesthetic of clothes, furniture, a restaurant, even the food I eat but for someone once so steeped in the fashion game, it comes as a revelation to enjoy these aesthetics without the need to check others approval. It is incredibly liberating and creatively much richer. Trusting your impulses, loving things that are different which makes something so refreshing and finding your own language. So this summer my children will continue to be carried around on the back of my ridiculous tricycle, learn to deal with their mother' chaotic time schedules, sing and dance whenever and wherever the moment grabs them and be forced to wait patiently as I talk at length to anyone who is nice, reminding myself that one day, they too are going to embrace the same. They'll be all the more interesting for it. Oh, I forgot that they must be wearing peculiar clothing combinations on all of these occasions. Amen.

Thou shalt guard mummy' purchase and WAIT
for her to stop prowling around a car boot sale. 

Thou shalt DANCE, SING and appreciate all types of musique.

Thou shalt be prepared to WEAR peculiar clothing.

Thou shalt RIDE on the boss' bike!