Polo Necks, Plants & Some Purloined Encaustic Tiles

After writing about those useful but not particularly exciting things you find in charity shops as if by magic I found this polo neck jumper for £2 the day after publishing my post and with UK temperatures plummeting to below zero it couldn't have turned up at a better time.

I love how it matches my orange fedora perfectly, I bet if I'd trawled every retail outlet in England trying to find the ideal coloured jumper I'd have come home empty-handed (and probably brain dead from being tortured by the incessant Xmas music, too).

Today I wore it underneath this vintage Salamander maxi dress lovely ex-blogger Curtise gave me the first time we met (back in 2012).

The sleeves weren't originally flared, I Vixified them using a vintage shawl in a near-identical print I'd found in a charity shop. Link HERE.

Along with a certain Orange Bloke currently in London, there's another unwelcome American import to the UK - Black Friday - an excuse for the shops to sell off their unwanted tat to people desperate for a bargain. Anyway, you know me, I've never done what I'm told and have absolutely no interest in running off to the shops for something because I've been brainwashed into needing it by a lame TV advert. Jon and I spent last Friday (and the weekend that followed) doing stuff in the house and garden and not parting with a penny of our cash.

Yesterday was Green Monday. After re-potting my plants, over-wintering the geraniums and raking up the last of the Autumn leaves I threw on my velvet maxi and went forth & treated myself to some new houseplants. I'm holding a Calathea and a Mother-in-Law's Tongue (which my dear friend Ann tells me is known as Women's Tongue in Belgium - cheeky!), I also found a Peace Lily in a ceramic pot on the clearance shelf reduced to just £4 (the pots alone retail at £8) and after a light misting and a bit of a haircut I got up this morning to discover she's flowered overnight!

Other than the odd foray to the chazzas we haven't been out much recently (although there's a special trip out planned for Friday!) as we've been working on the bathroom - fitting a new shower unit, decluttering and redecorating. 

I've been hoarding collecting Victorian encaustic tiles since I was a teenager and Jon's finally put some of my collection to good use. Looking at those Art Nouveau poison green beauties instantly transport me to my misspent youth when me and my then partner-in-crime, after necking a bottle of Thunderbird, thought it would be a good idea to liberate them from a derelict building in Walsall town centre.

Hopefully I'll be able to show you the finished room in its entirety by the end of next week but, in the words of The Smiths, These Things Take Time.

 When you're a grown-up it's quite acceptable to buy yourself birthday presents so my Happy Birthday to me gift this year is this antique Lamani neck ring, worn by my favourite Indian nomadic tribeswomen. The coins are dated 1905, back to when King Edward VII was Emperor of India. 

See you when I'm 53!