It quickly became apparent that they were arguing about money, or rather he was shouting and she was trying to respond in a calm and quiet manner. He was asking her to give him the f***ing money, calling her the word that we all hate as well as every other name under the sun and went so far as to actually spit at her through the fence. Aside from wondering what on earth she was even doing talking to him and not walking away, the thought that was going through my head was: do I do anything? He kept screaming that she owed him this money and he wanted the card as well and if she touched anything of his again he would f***ing kill her. All the time he was trying to lunge through the fence at her, fortunately she was standing far enough back that he couldn’t reach. After about 5 minutes of him threatening to come into the station, she gave him what he wanted, he disappeared with one last ‘c’ word and she went up and over the tracks to the opposite platform.

Should we mind our own business?

It’s stayed with me for most of the day for many reasons: thankfully I don’t see this kind of thing too often so it shocks me when I do; it made me realise how DAMN lucky I am to have a loving and supportive husband, friends and family and to not find myself caught up in any situations where anyone would even speak to me like that that I actually knew; and mainly, because I couldn’t help wondering what I would have done if it had got worse.

My thoughts were that from our side there was definitely safety in numbers – the station was manned by TFL bods, as well as some burly looking maintenance guys fixing the signs and several passengers. Would I have been brave enough to intervene by myself if it had continued, and not just in this situation but in any where someone is under attack? I always like to think I would, because I’d want someone else to come my help if I needed it, but when push comes to shove would I protect a stranger over myself? Are our reactions different when a woman is involved versus two men? What would YOU do?

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SO! To the goodies! I wanted to let everyone know what is in the prize and there just isn’t enough space on Facebook to right it all down. Before I start, I should add that everything we have is either organic cotton or ethically sourced. It should all last really well so long as they still fit of course! Also, I like colour as a rule. I consider some things unisex that the rest of you may not, but I don’t really do SAFE! So enjoy, here it is!

Our bumper unisex baby giveaway!

-Turquoise pixie style hat by Pili Pala. Size 6-12 months.

-Red & White striped bandana bib by Little Green Radicals. One size

-Citrus Spot bandana bib by HipHipBaby. One size

-Handknitted green shoes by Daisy Dumpling. Size 0-3 months

-Handknitted green hat by Daisy Dumpling. Size 6-12 months

-Handknitted green mittens by Daisy Dumpling. Size 6-12 months

-Muslin with turquoise elphant print by Aden & Anais. This is HUGE!

-Red short-sleeved tshirt by Pili Pala. Size 6-12 months

-Red & navy leggings with yellow trim by Pili Pala. Size 6-12 months

-Turquoise trousers with turn-over cuffs by Pili Pala. Size 3-6 months

-Moomin tshirt by Green Eyed Monster. 0-6 months

-Purple leggings by Little Green Radicals. 0-6 months

-Denim shorts by Green Cotton. Size 3 months

-Sleeveless blue star print vest by Green Cotton. Size newborn

-Sleeveless green stripe vest by Green Cotton. Size 3 months

-Orange & purple vest by Green Cotton. Size 6 months

Well that’s it! To enter, you need to go to our Facebook fanpage and find the original note I wrote about the giveaway on the wall. It should be the one that has all the comments. All you need to do is LIKE the page, then once you find my wall entry, LIKE IT, SHARE IT, and LEAVE A COMMENT ON IT!

The winner will be picked by one of those good randomiser thingies on Thursday evening at 8pm! ENJOY! x

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“I want smog! I want cars! I want clogged up road, high streets heaving with people. I want action! Life! Cafes! Every time I walk through my village, I wonder how I ended up living somewhere so tiny, somewhere so small that you can’t open a car door without all eyes swivelling round to watch you.”

Evening Standard journalist Lucy Cavendish on High St Kensington as she writes about her desire to return to London *image courtesy of Tony Buckingham, www.thisislondon.co.uk"*

This lady could be ME! Apart from the fact that she is a proper journalist and I was only a pretend one for 5 minutes, aged 22. She continues:

“London is calling me again – and its lure feels irresistible. Even though when I left the city and all my friends said helpful things like ‘”You won’t last”‘ and I was incandescent with fury at their assumptions, I have to admit the experiment is over [sic] I enjoy the anonymity. I like how large the city is, how there seem to be endless possibilities, opportunities. It’s exciting”.

YES YES YES! I’m not alone in my slightly obsessional love for a dirty, expensive place. I love Lucy Cavendish, who finishes in part with:

“I love the diversity of London [sic] I want to feel alive, vibrant, mentally stimulated, all the things I feel I have lost touch with by living in the sticks”.

I don’t know what’s more spooky, that someone has emulated my thoughts so precisely, or that those thoughts should appear in a newspaper the day after I’ve put my own love down in a teensy blog. What’s EVEN more weird is that the photo of the journalist above is taken on High Street Kensington, which for my first 8 years in London was my local shopping street!

It’s not the first time something weirdly coincidental happens – I can often be humming a song and turn on the radio to meet that same song in the right place, or talking with Mr DCB about a random film I want to watch and turn on the TV to find it’s on that night. I’m sure he must think I’m really a witch. So there you have it, today’s rather freaky co-incidence. Maybe I’ll play Euro Millions this week…

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I don’t really remember the conversations I had with my parents when I told them I was moving here, but I do remember Mum saying I’d be lonely. Pah! Loneliness is a small town where unless you were BORN there, you’ll never truly be accepted. Loneliness is not a city of 9 million people, all coming and going, at least not to me anyway. I’ve always felt welcomed here, that anything goes and no-one judges you for how you look, what you wear and best of all, you won’t get idle tittle-tattles gossiping about you on your visit to the supermarket. I love the hubbub, the smells, the noise, the chaos. So it’s expensive (stupidly so), I’ll probably never be able to afford a house and if you believe what you read in the papers you run the risk of being stabbed every time you step outside you own front door. I should say my second most favourite place in the whole world to live would have probably be New York. As you can see, hand-on heart I’m a city gal.

I loved Earl’s Court the minute I stepped out of the underground and onto the crazily frenetic Earl’s Court Road. Having moved to London fairly soon after graduating to study a pgDip in Journalism, I wanted to live near-ish to where the course took place in Bayswater, but didn’t really know London at all. So I looked at a map, saw something that looked vaguely nearby and spent the next few months getting completely befuddled by all the different underground trains going into and out of Earls Court station. My flat was, to put it kindly, appalling. I’m writing this now in the spare bedroom of my current home, and my whole flat was not much larger than this room. It had one of those platform beds with a ladder up to it, no oven with just 2 hob rings, water that was so terrible you couldn’t even filter it and the tiniest shower room which I shared with my slightly eccentric lady next-room owner. It wasn’t even a shower, just a cupboard with a dribble, and she used to take VERY infrequent showers with the light OFF!

A flat of very similar size to mine, just much nicer! *image courtesy of The Mirror*

Despite the downsides to the “flat”, it DID have a balcony and I have the most amazing memories of my time there, as my fab BFFs and tweeters @ajlangley, @dan_martin and @dinabehrman would certainly attest to. There was A LOT of wine drunk in the flat, a crazy amount of people crammed in some of the time (I think the record of people sleeping over was 5, like sardines we were). Most importantly, it was mine, albeit rented. My step out into the big, wide world and I was PROUD. As the journalism fell by the wayside in my quest to pay bills and support my then-boyfriend, I took up a job which I still do to this day. Next January will mark 10 years in that job. Yikes. I’m a bit of sticker once I get my feet under the table!

Leaving Earls Court I moved slightly west to Olympia which is at the non-posh end of High St Kensington, and then onto Hammersmith where I moved into a beautiful flat with the man who is now my better half, Mr DCB. In 2010, after much crying from me, I said goodbye to my West London life and we moved south of the river (shock, horror!) to Forest Hill which is where we are now in a lovely (still rented) little Victorian terrace house. And despite my initial fears, I love it here too, just as much as I loved West London.

In the decade that’s passed in this brilliant city, I’ve studied, worked, loved, lost, made amazing friends, partied, married, set up a business, become a Samaritan and a part-time market-trader! I’ve changed and grown as the city has changed and grown with me and as I have my faults, so too does the place I call home. Yet it’s the place that’s supported me, held me when I’ve been down and picked me up by its very verve and relentless energy. I’ve learned so much about people, about myself, about life whilst I’ve lived here and I could spend every day if I had the time discovering something new here. I would defend London to the ends of the earth. Maybe, just maybe, that’s because I’m a Londoner.

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To check out the full review, click here and of course, have a mooch around the StyleTreaty.

Our review by the Style Treaty

I’m always on the look out for people to try our clothes and then post their reviews, so if you’re interested just let me know by commenting!

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In true new year’s style however, I do have one resolution. Only one because it’s a manageable target, for me anyway. My resolution, if I choose to accept it, is to be more upfront about what I do. Or who I am. Or what I do. Maybe both. I’ve realised that it’s one of the most common questions people ask when they meet you for the first time “What do you do?”. Funny huh? As people mean this question to understand what we do for a living, why don’t they ask “what do you do for a living?” or “what are you employed as?” but no, always “what do you do?”. Therefore I’ve decided to meet a slightly ridiculous question, taken in context, with a much more ballsy answer. I’m going to tell new people that I meet (and trust me, with 6 weddings and counting on the agenda for 2012, I’ll be meeting a lot of new people!) what I do. Which is, I run my own business selling bright and beautiful organic children’s clothing. Not, I work in IT. Which is what I do too and currently tell people who ask the daftest of questions, but doesn’t define who I am. Lost yet? No? Good, keep up.

Aside from DCB, heat is the other thing that defines who I am. It was 8.30am in Sinagpore's Botanical Gardens a few months ago. Bliss.

Currently, I believe in my business, and I know Mr DCB does too. Anyone outside of our cosy little coupledom, I’m not so sure about – they humour me and support me in ways that they can, but I think deep down no-one would be surprised if I gave it all up tomorrow. So now I need to convince people that I’m serious about this, it’s not going away, and one day in the future I will never again need to be pondering the thought of going back to my day job on Tuesday because DaisychainBaby WILL be my WHOLE job.

There you have it, underneath my fairly womanly exterior I have a big pair of meaty balls. And it’s about time I showed them off.

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Red & White Snuggly Dungarees

The ultimate item in non-flattery, I’m not even sure why dungarees are made in sizes bigger than aged 10. Little children however look absolutely adorable in them and we love the new mini-range from Little Green Radicals! Coming in 3 stripy designs, each pair is lovingly made from organic cotton jersey and is so snuggly soft that even I want a pair (would be great for sleeping in!). They have made 3 colourways: a berry and pink stripe; a grey and white stripe; and a red and white stripe. Each pair comes in sizes 0-6 months and 6-12 months but as with all their range the sizes are generous, giving plenty of room for growth. The straps are fastened using big buttons and they have poppers around the legs for quick nappy changes. Perfect when worn over the top of a babyvest and/or under a cardigan, they form a great little outfit and come priced at £16 + P&P. Enjoy!

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So – flashback. The week we posted about the great legging debate, we’d just spent 2 days at the Mediaeval Weekend in Ruislip with Duckpond Market. We had a brilliant time, and although the Saturday is always a little quieter on these double days, Sunday ended up being our best ever market there. This speaks volumes as we’ve been going every month since early 2009! We love it.

Our Sale Rail at Duckpond in August

The weekend after that (August Bank Holiday weekend), my bestest friend got married!! She was my bridesmaid in 2007 when Mr DCB and I strapped on the old ball and chain ;o) so she very kindly asked me to return the favour. I took Friday off work and travelled back to Newbury, which is where we grew up and where her parents still live part of the time in the family home. It was such a trip down memory lane for me because I haven’t been back since around 2000 – my parents moved away when I left for University in 1998 and I travelled around so much I didn’t really keep in touch with anyone from my school days apart from Kate. The whole weekend was completely amazing, with the wedding falling on the Sunday and a wonderful lunch at her parents’ house on Bank Holiday Monday before Mr DCB and I headed back to London.

My best friend and me, getting our hair freak on!

The happy couple on their happy day!

The first weekend in September, we had our annual event at Angel Canal Festival in Islington. Sadly the weather forecast was appalling and so the weather proved to be. It rained almost non-stop for about 3 hours and we lost a huge amount of trade because of it. We normally do very well there, but of course no-one wants to shop in the pouring rain, so most of our energy went on trying to keep the stock dry and eating cakes from the scout stall next door!

That takes us to two weeks ago, when we took part in what is by our biggest, best and most successful event every year – the Thames Festival. Taking place over the second weekend in September every year, it is London’s way of saying goodbye to summer (pah, what summer?!) and it stretches most of the way along the South Bank. It’s completely exhausting because you have to be there 07.30 and trading is from midday to 10pm, both days. As everything is outdoors, you have to take down on Saturday night and set up all over again on Sunday. But it’s amazing, and we had our best year there, after 3 years of trading.

Our stall at the Thames Festival

I must take a pause from the event side of things…that is only what’s been going on at the weekends. Aside from the exhausting non-stop rollercoaster of not getting any rest for weekends on end, Mr DCB and I have both been incredibly busy in our day jobs. I found out a colleague was leaving and have therefore spent a few weeks involved in advertising, interviewing and recruiting a new member of staff. More CVs than I can shake a stick at, several strong candidates, back for second interviews and a decision made. Our new colleague starts on Monday. It’s not that I mind doing this, but obviously when you’re spending all day interviewing, the work that you would normally be doing still needs to be done. Cue late nights playing catch up.

I’ve also recently begun my 3 year stint as Co-Director at the Central London Branch of Samaritans. I never ever thought it would be for me when I first started volunteering 5 years ago, but in the time that I’ve been there I’ve clearly made enough of an impression that I was asked to fulfill this incredibly prestigious and immensely challenging role. I can’t write much about what is involved because it’s still in debate about how much we say about the charity and our involvement in it in a public domain, but needless to say I am honoured beyond words, as well as excited and daunted to take part in moving the organisation forward for the next 3 years.

We’ve also had some incredibly sad news too in the past month. Mr DCB’s nan, at the amazing age of 97, passed away on Monday 12th September. She had been poorly for some while, and living in a nursing home close to his parents in Hertfordshire. We got a call late Friday night as we were getting ready for the Thames Festival from his Mum that the doctor had said she only had days left, and so we decided that he would drop me at Thames on Saturday and then head off to see her. Fortunately he had already been up the weekend before, and as it happened she seemed to perk up a little bit over that weekend. We decided to both go together on Monday and left work a little bit early. By the time we got to the nursing home, she was very peaceful but no longer had the strength to say anything and could barely open her eyes. His Mum and sister were there, and we all sat with her for a few hours before leaving in the evening. Late that night, his sister called to say she’d passed away. We’re firm believers that she knew we were there, and I’m just so glad we got to say goodbye. She then had a little time to herself and gently went off. After all this time in life, she absolutely called the shots and chose her way to go. A wonderful woman, she will be sadly missed and we have the funeral on Monday.

So back to DCB, and last weekend was Duckpond Market again (it’s the third Sunday of every month). Market overall was fairly quiet with not even as many stallholders as we’re used to seeing but we had a visit from one of our lovely regular customers, and displayed lots of new stock.

This weekend, well here I am writing away. We’ve finally got a bit of respite from the events which is just as well because I’ve got a terrible cold, no doubt from overdoing it. However, aside from travelling for the funeral tomorrow evening, we are otherwise engaged. Next Friday, 30th September, Mr DCB and I are going on holiday. Not just any holiday, but the holiday I am dubbing our “second honeymoon”. We’ve barely been away since the first one, and we’re splashing out because after 4 years, we really feel we totally deserve it. This time next week we will have just arrived in Singapore, where we will be staying for a few days with my brother-in-law and his family, and then we will be moving on to a resort in Borneo with it’s own nature sanctuary. After that we have a couple of nights at the Banyan Tree resort in Bintan, and then back to Singapore before flying home. I’m so excited I have already started packing and I just absolutely cannot, cannot, cannot wait to go.

Our holiday destination

There we have it – all the news on where we’ve been and also where we’re going. Unfortunately with everything that’s been occupying us lately, the online part of DCB has taken a back seat but we have so many lovely new AW goodies to show off we have to get some devoted time to update the website. It might not be before we go, but when we get back (or rather IF I come back, I may stay forever…!) we’ll be back, full throttle, and reinvigorated.

Fast forward 20 years and leggings are still very much a part of my life, but now I sell them instead of wear them. I tend to keep a steady supply online and at markets because they’re such staple items and fairly inexpensive, and the current trend tends to be wearing them under skirts and dresses rather than just t-shirts. At today’s market, I was pleasantly surprised when a lady and her partner came over with their little boy in a pushchair, and she picked up two pairs of leggings – for her son. She showed them to her partner, who incidentally was one of the biggest, butchest men I have ever seen. He nodded his approval, and the leggings were sold. So granted, most men approve anything for a quiet life, but you can count on it that leggings are a suitably controversial topic and most men would normally furiously shake their heads with a “my boy isn’t wearing those” caveman grunt. This isn’t the first time we’ve sold leggings for a boy, but it IS very rare and it is normally always our non-UK customers who do the purchasing. Customers from other countries seem to be so much more laid back about it than we are, opting for comfort over gender stereotyping.

Unisex?

So I posted the debate on to our Facebook page – leggings, for girls only, or boys too? The comments were fairly unanimous with a few broadminded exceptions. Leggings are too girly for boys, even little boys. Some cite their partners as not being happy about it, others that it’s a potential teasing/bullying topic which I do understand (although having been teased relentlessly through infant school because I had to wear glasses, I would argue that those children doing the bullying do so due to poor parenting rather than having a topic upon which to bully). So why is it that our European neighbours are so much more relaxed about these kind of things? Is social conformity less rigorous (after all, we all know examples of nations where lady shaving is almost frowned upon and everyone just gets on with it!)?

I would love to think that if I had children they would be raised in a free-spirited and independent way, but of course fully respecting the fact that they themselves may choose to conform along with their peers. I would want to rail against TV culture and commercial advertising, at the same time I do understand that once children reach a certain age they are almost entirely influenced by other children around them, as well as the dreaded capitalist behemoth. That’s why at DaisychainBaby we’ve opted only to take our ranges up to 5 years of age. That way, if a Mum wants to buy leggings (or tights!) for her son, she will be saluted and admired by me, albeit under my breath so no-one else knows I secretly approve…!

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