Weather chatter

Expat Kat posted recently about having to change all the bedding from summer duvets to winter duvets, running out of space and generally being driven crazy by it. (Some of us pointed her in the direction of space savers, - plastic zipped bags that, when sucked at by a vacuum cleaner, compress your stuff to about a tenth of its size. Be warned - if you use these when you are travelling, you might find you have a lot more space in your case, but it will also add a lot more weight! Plus - you have to somehow get it back to squashed size for your return journey which presumably means taking or locating a vacuum cleaner.)

Anyway, it got me to thinking about one of the more irritating (to my mind) aspects of living in the States. Two entirely seperate wardrobes. See, in most places (Southern Calif. excluded) the summers are hot, and the winters are anything from crisp to downright bloody freezing. Thus requiring very light clothing in the summer, when even jeans are too heavy, and parkas and ugly boots in the winter. And the questions becomes, where on earth do you put all the stuff?

I suppose you should make sure you can fit them all into your closet, but most people seem to take the unseasonal clothes off the hangers and look for somewhere to store them. Usually it's in plastic zipped bags under the beds. I have been lucky enough never to have encountered moths (ah, there - jinxed it!), but they seem to be the scurge of many people's lives. There must be nothing worse than taking out your winter sweaters/jumpers to find them resembling a slice of Swiss cheese.

The added scurge of two wardrobes is that you can easily find yourself bringing out your summer/winter clobber only to discover it has all somehow shrunk. Or rather, you can't do the buttons up. If we could wear the same clothes all year round, perhaps it would be a constant reminder of an expanding waistine or bum. (Do you think I've just stumbled on the reason why many Americans are overweight?) But no - for some reason the clothes fit for the required 6 month period, but when taken out the following year, a concurrent visit to the Weight Watcher's web site is required.

In these parts, the seasons at the moment, can't quite decide what they're doing. Less than two weeks ago (I think) we had temps in the 70's (farenheit), which was followed by pleasant, autumnal weather, then "bloody freezing". There was a frantic scramble for gloves and hats and the lighter coats were traded in for the first stage thermal coats. (No wonder there's a storage problem.) This past weekend was unseasonably warm again, but is scheduled to go back down to freezing later in the week.

What's a fashionista to do? Like I'd know.

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