Big Coat Folk
“After my large and ridiculous coat arrived ... I felt like a Greggs vegan sausage roll and I couldn’t have been happier about it”
Of all the changes over the past few months, the most surprising was how easily, readily, and with great excitement, that I scrolled through the Regatta website looking for a massive puffa coat. As a Londoner I would never have dreamed of buying one of these things or even going on the Regatta website. Not least because I imagined a puffa coat would make my already boisterously curvy frame look even more unruly. But as the early November winds and rains came across Margate from the North Sea, my lovely raincoat from Fatface just wasn’t good enough. Brilliant though it is, it doesn’t have any insulation at all and it is only slightly longer than a normal jacket, leaving everything from my upper thigh down exposed to the bracing elements of wind and rain (I do also wear trousers, by the way).
After my large and ridiculous coat arrived, once I’d zipped myself up in it, I felt like a Greggs vegan sausage roll and I couldn’t have been happier about it. I have to get out and about each day on walks for exercise, peace of mind, and if you follow my instagram stories, documenting all the weird dead marine life I keep finding on the beach. The coat allows this, due to his warmth and the fact that it is waterproof, as rain comes without warning truly within minutes of sun out here.
The eternal question whenever buying anything… do I like the thing or do I just fancy the model wearing it?
Pre-Move Me would never have dared to buy such a large coat, even if I would have loved to be this cosy and warm in chillier (but less windy) London. The Londoner mentality I had is that you are a pebble being constantly worn down by the current of the raging river which is London. Stick out too much, get in the way of other commuters, be too loud on a bus, dare to walk on the pavement instead of throwing yourself in the road out of the way of the yummy mummies using their prams as battering rams… step out of line and you will be corrected…you will be be pushed into the road, shoved on the escalator, and tutted at within an inch of your life on the bus. The grind of London life will wear you down until you become a proper, miserable, smooth as a pebble Londoner doing everything you can to take up as little space as possible. Once achieved, your job is then to continue the cycle of tutting and shoving to the next generation of newbies to the City. Ah, the circle of life. A large and warm puffa coat is too large to wear in a busy tube carriage, I’d be taking up too much space, which is a huge faux pas. I’d also need to take it off on the tube because of the hot polluted air down there means that you need to take off a few layers just to survive the 20 minute jaunt from Camden to Waterloo, even during winter.
I am still formulating my post-Londoner personhood. There are things, such as the almost constant need to walk as fast as possible and the commuting misery that I have shed very quickly indeed. Other things are changing as the seasons change, like this most recent shift in fashion. It’s true I never would have bought this coat as a Londoner, but I’m not a Londoner any more and conditions are VERY different out here.
I know it’s too big, taking it on trains means I have to strip it off and bundle it up in the luggage rack above my head each time and yes I’ve hit myself in the face with it when retrieving it from the luggage rack. But I don’t care. This is my big coat and I love it. I find myself at times rehearsing conversations with rude strangers about it during my days in London for work, imagining them asking me why I’ve got such a big coat and having to explain to them that I live by the sea and it’s fucking WINDY there. So far, of course, not one stranger has asked anything about it. The shocking truth is, probably no one cares?!
There’s an amazing feeling that comes from leaving London for somewhere with more space. I don’t feel guilty about the space I take up any longer, even with my big coat on. There’s space for everyone here. Sometimes I walk on the beach utterly by myself and it’s a big deal to realise how peaceful and lovely it feels to be alone here with the sea. No one is trying to rush past me like we’re in the rat run tunnels buried below Euston Station. Even walking in the woods back in Muswell Hill we’d often be taken over on the path by pushy runners or men having loud convos on their phones, or groups of other walkers would tailgate us as we were walking too slowly and we’d sarcastically ‘pull over’ to let them pass. All of these people totally ignoring the lovely woodland around them. None of that ‘ere!
Did I mention that it’s REALLY windy here?
Becoming a big coat local also means I feel I have a kinship with my fellow big coat folk. Indeed the big coat is one sign that you’re a local, a shibboleth, a marker of your membership of the Margate Lifers. There is a delicious Schadenfreude to watching daytrippers or weekenders shuffle off the train and immediately regret bringing only a small fashionable jacket and a thin fabric scarf.
So I am now proud to call myself a big coat person. The winter winds are freezing coming off the sea, but for god’s sake I need to get out on the beach and look at the dead things that have washed up with the latest high tide! More importantly, I need to enjoy the relaxing wonderful sound of the waves and the views from this corner of Kent out to the glorious North Sea.
