Making Friday Fun of me

This is self-indulgent, but it is Christmas, and I am tired. In lieu of genuine Friday Fun, I will instead be making fun of myself (and perhaps poking a little fun at my family too). Trips to Belfast and time with the family often involve a little digging through the archives and prompt some introspection - boxes of old school stuff resides there, as do a lot of photo albums.

It was the re-shelving of my baby photo album that began a last minute retrospection on Wednesday evening. I discovered a couple of albums of photos that I hadn't seen in years, both containing photographic evidence of at least two memorable holidays and assorted other curious photos. (Each album ended with a random assortment of pictures that bore no relation to each other - much time was spent trying to date them, with my father frequently insisting my sister must have been 7 in photos where I knew she was at least 10.)

I ended up having to get copies (poor quality photos of photos, sadly) of some of the classics, which at least amused us briefly. Knowing that other people's photos are rarely that interesting, this post may only interest three people, but never mind. At the very least it should make all of us very grateful not to be living in the early 1990's...

Flicking through these albums, I made a few discoveries. Firstly - and this wasn't so much a discovery as a resurrection of a memory I'd tried to suppress - fashion in the 90's was very, very bad.
Exhibit A: Matching mother-daughter floral all in ones. And I thought jumpsuits were a recent phenomenon?!

We were in Boston, eating Deli sandwiches. The caption said we were eating pastrami & rye, but there's no way my ten year old self would've chosen that as a sandwich filling.

Exhibit B: Dungarees (and paint splattered jeans) were never a good look. [I was also disturbed at how often that neon bumbag featured in photos...]

Another Boston photo. We were there for a couple of months - my outfit is entirely American.

Exhibit C: Mismatched clothing. Oh dear...

Secondly, a discovery that my sister - without fail - did amusing poses in all photos. Or, would try to get into photos that had nothing to do with her. Look closely at the three above and you'll spot comedy faces or arm gestures, typical of the family clown. However, this is my favourite:

Me and my parents studied this picture for a long time and none of us could work out why we stopped in front of a branch of C&A for a photo. It's possible the feature is actually the canal and it's also possible that it's from a trip to the Netherlands in 1994 (this deduction made solely from the fact that I'm wearing a green coat, thus meaning I was definitely at secondary school). Anyway, note the ridiculous facial expression in the foreground. [Edit: a Facebook friend recognised it as Lincoln. Not quite as exotic, but perfectly plausible.]

Thirdly, it seems that I was actually known as 'Lizzy' in public and with people other than my immediate family. I have something of a multiple personality when it comes to versions of my name, which I think I've mentioned before, but I'd been fairly sure that only a very small group of people called me Lizzy. However, two photos from the summer I turned 10 would seem to dispute this:

My 10th birthday cake, clearly iced with 'Lizzy'.

Peculiar, possibly Native American in aim, face-painting with 'Lizzy' across my forehead. 

[It was a Vacation Bible School with a pioneer theme. I couldn't possibly explain...]

Fourthly, one word: beard...

I have a friend who's come close to emulating this feat in recent months, but I think even they are beaten by my Dad's 1982 effort. Really quite impressive. [Sobering thought. My Dad was the age I am now in that photo.] 

Fifthly, I had always been under the impression that I'd been excited about visiting Mozart's birthplace when we went to Salzburg. It seems I was wrong:

Not a great advert for Mozart, but a potentially great one for Clothkits - that's a matching outfit, right there! 

Because I'm a generous individual, if you do find this stuff vaguely interesting, there's a whole album of it.