Airport adventures. Viral cakes and cookies. The vagaries of fashion.

Here is a message I received about the continuing saga of my Spanish sister and her airport adventures:

“I have finally got home, Anthea. It was a long night at the airport with very little sleep, but in good company. First I was with a big group from Mérida who looked after me while we sorted out the luggage reclaim, which was chaotic as the luggage from all cancelled flights was coming out on three belts. Hence there were thousandd of peole trying to see their cases. We finally got ours and the group insiste on heloing me get a flight. Unfortunatemy they were having great difficulty getting flights for their group of 14, and would possibly have to wait till Friday or Saturday with six children in tow.

Then I spent tve night with a young couple from Bornos,in the Cádiz mountains, and we sat around talking amongst ourselves, and later with an Irish lady, and around 7a.m. a young Italian musician joined our group.He had been playing the clarinet in a concert in the Royal Albert Hall, and his flight back to Italy had been cancelled, too. A pleasant but uncomfortable night was had by all.

Now I have to see about trying to get a refund fron easyJet🤪”

From reports I have read about people having to travel without their luggage, people having to wait days for flights to their chisen destination, I think my sister got off quite lightly. And reports suggest that, with over 2,000 flights cancelled, getting compensation could be difficult.

Now, some people seem to wait in queues for fun. I keep reading about cake shops and cafes going viral and people travelling long distances to buy cookies - always cookies, never biscuits - and cakes. The latest I’ve heard of is the Yo-Chi dessert shop in Notting Hill.

“We wait in line for everything now,” says 23-year-old Hannan Mahamud as she stands midway down the queue with three friends. “I queued for an hour the other week for a cookie, although it wasn’t worth it. We heard about Yo-Chi through a creator on TikTok who works in an office building across the road and posts queue updates. We thought it might be a fun day out.”

What a strange world! 

Here’s another example of strangeness. Marks and Spencer, once much valued for it’s underwear by a French friend of mine, is now selling a “hip boost” bodysuit - “essentially, a leotard with slits to stuff full of padding to give the wearer a surgery-free brazilian bum lift (BBL) that follows in the footsteps of M&S’s stick-on nipples – and padded bum shorts.” Padding your backside apparently makes your waist look thinner, presumably without actually having to do exercises to make it really thinner.

Fashion is strange. I’ve never quite understood the desire for a big bum. Maybe it’s having grown up in the time when Twiggy was the model we all wanted to emulate, a more slender, almost boyish figure. But the hip-boost bodysuit was preceded long ago by the bustle, “a padded undergarment or wire frame used to add fullness, or support the drapery, at the back of women's dresses in the mid-to-late 19th century.

There was also the crinoline.

And in the 16th and 17th century the farthingale served the same purpose.

And nowadays wedding dresses can be bought with built in bustles. 

It’s all madness. It’s time body-shaming truly stopped and women chose to wear what theyvloke because they like it, not because the dictates of fashion hpuses tell them what to do.  

That’s another rant over.

Life goes on, stay safe and well, everyone!