Miss Malaysia 2012

In my youf days, I travelled a bit. Scout Jamboree in Korea, hospitality in Japan, a year in California with my family, countless camping trips to France, and then just before I started fostering, three weeks backpacking around India, again with family. occasional forays into Other bits of Europe scarcely counting as travel. It was a good childhood.

I'm not as brave as Mum and Dad. Three weeks under canvas, moving every two to three days just isn't for me. And I can't see myself taking the girls to any far flung corner of the world. True, we've done Florida a few times, but I'm reasonably confident that the health system there would handle anything the girls might throw at it. So we stay mostly within the confines of Europe, knowing that an EHIC and a spot of open wallet surgery will get us out of most emergencies in more or less one piece.

Mum and Dad meanwhile continue to shrink the globe, visiting family and ex- post grad students and old friends, attending conferences, weddings and whatever else comes their way. And continue to build up our international dress stores; forever useful for Baden Powell evenings and overdue homework.

Except I've now spotted the flaw in the plan.

It's relatively easy to drape a Sari around an immobile child, safety pin it to the wheelchair, and not have to worry too much about the actual fit. But when your more mobile child needs an international outfit for the end of World Week, and it needs to hold together when swapping wheelchairs, and for self propelling as well as steering the tank, you can't really staple the Kimono in place. And the Han Bok hangs off, and the shalwar kameez looks like a sleeping bag.

Time to simplify. Happily, there is one style of dress which adjusts for all heights and widths. Enter Miss Malaysia!

Tia

Ps - the Scots have their Kilts and the Welsh their lovely bonnetty things - what do we English have?