Conversions: weight,height,dress size and shoe sizes - it all depends where you live.

I think I was born with size 7 feet. As far back as I can remember of my very British childhood, I wore a size 7. I actually wasn't particularly conscious of the size of my feet until the mother of a friend of mine exclaimed "Goodness, what size do you wear!?" - enough to make an awkward 13 year old feel even more out of place. "Well, you'll never blow over in the wind!" my dad would kindly tease (although I do vividly remember a wave knocking me off my feet in the ocean and going under for too long - how does that happen with size 7 feet?). As an adult, I actually like my feet. Of course I wish I wore a size smaller, but hey, 7 isn't that big, is it? Even if I do have to creep into buying a 7.5 sometimes. The point is, I just don't think about the size of my feet any more. They are what they are. And I'm quite certain there is no safe cosmetic procedure that can chop a bit off without losing some toes.

When you move around you have to get used to conversions, of the measuring kind. Everyone measures everything differently. And when you first start shopping in a new country, it's rather hit and miss. In Britain I was foot size 7, dress size 8, weighed 9 stones and was 5 feet 8 inches tall; groceries were bought in pounds and ounces, water and beer alike was measured in pints.

When I cooked, everything was measured in ounces: at school we were taught 25 grams is equal to 1 ounce, but still everything was measured in ounces. I have long since discovered that actually, 1 ounce is equal to 28.35 grams. Now, it's common knowledge that to bake a cake successfully, you need to be exact with your measurements. I long ago decided it was poor quality kitchen scales that resulted in many of my own baking disasters. Using cups in the States saved me - it was cleaner, quicker and easier. But, having been taught at school that 1 ounce is 25 grams, it really is no wonder that one baking disaster followed another. The fault wasn't in kitchen equipment, or even me, it was indeed, in the teaching. Hurrah! someone to blame at last. Thanks Mrs McDuff. Or Mrs Rough-Puff-McDuff as she was known.

In Australia, if I remember correctly (I wasn't an avid shopper back then, I think I almost lived on the beach in shorts and T-shirts save for the few work skirts and tops I would occassionally buy), I was a foot size 8, dress size 10, I weighed 126 pounds, and measured 173cm tall. And just for the record, my coffee each morning was a "flat white" (white, no sugar, no froth).

And now the good - no great - news! When I moved to the U.S., whooosh! my dress size dropped to a skinny size 6, and even (thanks Kenneth Cole!)a tiny 4. Although the feet, disappointingly shot up to a size 9.5. If felt very strange to ask for such large size shoes. My weight was still 126 pounds, recipes were in cups (fabulous), and 32 degrees outside was freezing thanks to fahrenheit (although California and Florida, of course, never saw these temperatures).

A move several years later over to continental Europe, and things suddenly felt "normal". I dressed in a size 36, I wear size 41 shoe, measure 173cm tall. My weight, instead of stones or pounds which no one has a clue about here, is a standardised 57 kilos. I ask for meat in kilos at the deli, read recipes in kilograms and decilitres, and we stick to celcius outside. Phew! If all this is confusing to you too, then check out UDDQ.se, a great site for figuring out those conversions!

Still, just to be on the safe side, I hang a conversion chart up in my kitchen, so I can correctly reel off figures over the phone when talking to friends in the U.K., the U.S., or Australia, and I stick to packet cake mixes from now on.

And my feet are still the same size.