16 August 2012

The height of Summer

Hi friends

Today I am joining in with Julie Kirks experiment/ investigation/ link up, to find out the heights of bloggers. You know, the person behind the words! It is intriguing I must say, finding out just how tall some of you are! 


I am going to say it how it is...

I am small.

As in 5 foot 1 and half an inch. (on a good day)

And yes, that half an inch IS important.

I stopped growing at the age of thirteen. This wasn't a problem until everyone else continued to grow and I was left staring at shoulders.

That isn't a joke. In a crowd I come away with neck strain because I am looking up the whole time.

One of our my favourite things to do at school was to stand next to the tallest people in my year. Just to make them feel really tall and all!


Great huh!

Short has it's advantages.

I am an expert at wiggling through crowds. Find that gap and I am off, leaving my tall friends fighting with elbows.

I can fit into children's clothes. Childrens clothes are cheaper, what's not to love? Although I do draw the line at frills and ribbons.

Boys will never, ever be taller than me. Honestly for tall girls I have spoken to this has become a real issue for them. I have never worried about it. That whole let the man do the big and protective thing,..I.have.it.covered.


I have no issue wearing disgustingly high heels. I won't be taller than you, I promise!


But short has its..well, short comings!


Working at a prep school I avoided being around the 13 year olds. Most of them were taller than me. I went on one fated field trip and got handed a clipboard and pen by the supervisor who thought I was a child. I am nearly twenty. Awkward all round really.
Dealing with the five year olds was less of a problem.

Somehow being short seems to come with a label of, oh it's ok to pick me up. Especially now the little brother who isn't little has grown so much, he just throws me over his shoulder.


This leads me onto the hug. You know that awkward moment when you don't know quite what to do. Aim for the neck? If so be lifted off the ground when the other person straightens up or they look like a hunchback having to bend down so low. OR do you go for the middle and end up with well.. a face full of cleavage? It's a dilemma.

Thankfully my mother suffers the same problems being 5 foot (ahem) 2

She was once greeted with this from her future grandma-in-law...

"You're small aren't you, but you're not thin. Your sturdy."

I figure there are two ways of looking at it... "the best things come in small packages" OR "poison comes in small bottles". There are two sides to every coin friends!


Thanks for stopping by and Thank you Julie for such a fun thing to write about!

9 comments:

debs14 said...

I was thinking of joining in with this too. And I am SO jealous of your half inch because I only ever made it to 5' 1" :-(
I work in a school office and it's good in September because we have 160 new Year 7s arrive and on the whole I am taller than a lot of them. But by Christmas, they will have overtaken me and I will go back to being trampled in the corridors!

scrappyjacky said...

The half inch is definately important....I have one of those as well!!! There really are advantages and disadvantages to being short.

Julie Kirk said...

Brilliant! Love this so much and it's all very familiar! I still get mistaken for being a lot younger than I am ... and I'm sure it's partly due to my height!

Thanks so much for your fabulous contribution! All pinned now: http://pinterest.com/notesonpaper/the-height-of-summer-2012/

So far there's more of our height playing along than anyone else ... maybe us small-ies are less self-conscious??? Who knows ....?

Julie :-)

Maria Ontiveros said...

The more of these I read, the more I want to do one. . .
Rinda

Beverly said...

ohmygoodness you are petite and I always pictured Deb at maybe my height! (5'8")

Sian said...

Yes! I have to waer children's shoes most of the time and they are a lot cheaper. Definite advantage.

You never know, you might get a bit taller (though sounds like you are very happy the way you are and rightly so) - my Mum started growing again once she went to university!

Lizzie said...

"Poison comes in small bottles", eh? Oooo... we have been warned! I am sure the first epithet applies better to our Abi though.
I am not particularly small, esp. for my own generation (bearing in mind I am old enough to be counted in your mum's generation, rather than yours :~0 )- I'm 5'5"... But feel sorry for James... His mum is 5'5", his dad is only 5'6"... his grandmothers are 5'2 & 1/2 (yes, the half does matter!) and 4'10"... Even his grandfather (paternal) was small... Does he stand a chance, eh? Well, his maternal grandad and great-grandma were both tall; his auntie is tallish and so are a couple of his cousins... And just now he is a half inch taller than his mum. Maybe he'll make 5'10" yet!
I can sympathise on the "small" problems though. I had several male friends who were muuuuch taller than me - cue crick in the kneck. One was able to throw an arm over my shoulders - behind my head really - and still reach to push my bike for me... He is 6'2" though. And most of my son's friends are at least my height now (they are 14!), so I should think they'll all be taller than me very soon. Which is a bit intimidating when they're all together in a huge group...
At least I was teaching ages 8-12 this week... they were all smaller than me (well almost all!)
But children's clothes are cheaper and some of them are nicer than adults' ones too. Silver lining to every cloud, eh?
X

Lou said...

brilliant post Abi x

Jimjams said...

Lovely lovely post Abi with some great shots. A vertically challenged colleague at the school where I used to work had to jump up and down several times before the "Santa" visiting her classroom realised that she was the teacher!