All Shapes and Sizes

Josiah wearing a 6 month hoodie

“Oh what a cute baby! How old is he?”(Portuguese stranger)

“2 months next week.” (Mark)

“2 months?! He is very big!” (Portuguese stranger)

“Yep.” (Mark)

The above, translated into English, is along the lines of many a conversation we have had while out with Josiah.
Today Josiah is 2 months old, so he’s getting some jabs at the doctor’s today. He’ll also be weighed and (for our curiosity and parental pride) measured up.
Josiah is fairly big even for English standards at a whopping 63 cm at exactly two months old, but his size is certainly emphasised by the smaller babies that surrounded him from his birth. In fact, just the other day while getting out clothes I had stored for him as he got bigger, I found a top which on the label said “6 months:62 cm”. Wow.
The trend isn’t just with our baby,though. I know I’m not exactly a huge girl, but here in Portugal I have never felt so tall or large. The old ladies in particular are all rather tiny, and it makes me wonder if their height is mainly due to malnutrition from the poor dictatorship days they grew up in – on the other hand, even the younger men are shorter than the UK average, which makes Mark happy (see below).

Source: Wikipedia. Not a completely fair comparison.

The fact remains however, that I’m a rather tall and large lady here in Portugal. This has posed us a problem with clothes sizing. Yesterday we went shopping for baby clothes, since Josiah is growing out of some of his trousers, and a new dress for me in the Forum shopping centre. The Forum is on the outskirts of town, and it’s really big, air conditioned, and has a nice food court which even has some healthy food options. So it’s worth a look in, even if just ‘cause it’s got the only H&M in Coimbra.

                        Yes, they have palm trees in the shopping centre.

There is another shop in the Forum and elsewhere in Coimbra which I love, which is called Natura. However, when trying on various tops last time I was in, I found there were only three sizes, Small, Medium and Large, and the lengths did not vary much at all. As a result I looked like I was trying on a top that may have fit me when I was 14, with my post-preggers tummy on clear view. Nice.
This trend I then found, was not just a Natura thing. Many of the shops that are popular here but non existent in the UK have only three sizes. The strangest of all of these I think, are the women’s underwear shops which again either only have small, medium or large, or only go up to a B cup. Am i the only one who thinks this is incredibly bizarre?! I mean, they can’t all be the same sizes right? where do the larger women get their clothing? Or do they just cope with ill fitting clothes and underwear?
Actually this could be a class fat deterrent. After all, I don’t think I’ve seen a single obese person here. Perhaps the natives think along the lines of “if I put on weight, I will literally not have ANYTHING to wear.” If so it certainly works; then again maybe I’m wrong and the “larger” (read: average in UK) women are all living underground. Or the other explanation could be that we are simply far more varied in the UK, and so there is far more demand for a wide range of sizes. It makes sense: their diet is rather healthy, consisting mostly of fish, rice, cabbage, beans, the occasional steak and such. There are no take-aways here selling battered fish and chips, parmos, battered mars bars and deep fried pizza (yes, Mark ate some while on holiday in Scotland). Maybe this is a lesson me and Mark should try to learn while we’re here, and you never know, we might come home skinnier and healthier than we have ever been! If so,I expect I will be leaving our Portuguese friends rather fatter for knowing us, as I’m always baking them cookies and brownies and puddings they have never even heard of before!
There is also a jeans anomaly. While shopping for jeans for Mark, in the UK we have always found ones with the right leg length. Doing the same here we found none shorter than 34 inches…though a lot of the men are shorter than Mark! It didn’t take long to notice they all just wear them bunched up at the bottom of the leg… you’d think they’d just import shorter jeans and save on fabric, but no…. Jeans anomaly.
Either way, I am simply very glad for the few clothes shops here that also exist at home: H and M, Mango and Zara. That and online shopping!