I Felt The Earth Move

After Storm Dudley, Eunice and Franklin, on Monday night Walsall was shaken by an earthquake - not as big as the Dudley one of 2002 but unsettling nonetheless.

On Tuesday I donned my 1960s tissue silk Treacy Lowe dress, again with the vintage suede waistcoat Liz bought me years ago, and went charity shopping, finding a few interesting bits.

A 1980s Lesley Fay USA-made tartan jacket, a 1960s sheepskin coat by Scandinavian Furs, Anthropologie cotton biker jacket, a 1960s wool shawl, another Philippa Gregory novel, a Ralph Lauren chambray shirt, a 1990s cord blazer, a 1980s Stephen Oliver 100% snakeskin belt, a 1970s Prova safari jacket, a Rowan all-wool cropped cardi, a rayon leisure shirt 

And a vintage bud vase (for £1.25) to add to our growing collection.....

After lunch, I walked down to the beauty salon for a pre-eyelash allergy test before an afternoon of laundry and travel planning. We spent the evening watching the rest of the Art Nouveau documentary series we'd started watching last week as well as a couple of episodes of season two of Young Wallander,

On Wednesday after ticking some mundane household chores off my to-do list, Jon & I went for a walk around the block. I wore my trusty Dilli Grey block printed maxi skirt, a vintage Ayesha Davar shirred cheesecloth blouse and a fake fur gilet which was originally Zara but I bought secondhand.

I'm in the middle of Operation Wear My Shoes In. Although these Superga organic cotton platform plimsolls are secondhand and ridiculously comfy, I'm leaving nothing to chance and have been going for long walks in them daily to make doubly sure that my feet won't become a massive blisterfest after a day of pounding the Spanish pavements. 

We spotted the burgeoning signs of Spring in our garden. I've no idea where those tête-à-tête daffs came from, they popped up last year and their pretty faces are most welcome.

Leaving Lord Jon to clean the windows, I spent the afternoon engrossed in my latest Philippa Gregory novel and by teatime was a lot more knowledge on the Wars of the Roses. 

Wednesday was rum and cola night and one of those rare occasions where I cooked, nothing earth-shattering, just a cauliflower and broccoli mornay which was even better having worked out how to use the grill in the new oven. Later we watched the rest of Young Wallander.

With Thursday's bleak news of Ukraine's invasion and the grey skies, I was delighted when I did a blog catch-up after my Wii Fit workout and saw this post from my friend, Ivana. She's so talented. Check her out HERE.

All set to go charity shopping, Jon got a last-minute notification of an imminent delivery of car parts so our plans were abandoned. Instead, I sat at the PC for most of the day and worked my way through this year's festival applications with the news on in the background and snowflakes fluttering past the window.

Nothing new to see here, just one of my vintage Afghan dresses, a chazza shopped Art Nouveau belt and Mum's Biba boots. Jon's sorting out my roots at the weekend, they've not been touched since 3rd January and my parting's getting wider by the day.

We watched the excellent British spy drama Official Secrets before our weekly Apprentice fix (although it's probably more my fix than Jon's). I have to admit that my style of management was similar to that of Harpreet's, no wonder I burned out before I was 40.

Friday was charity shopping day and a bright, but cold morning. I wore my Dilli Grey birthday dress with a vintage suede jacket and my secondhand Doc Marten Divas.

What did we find? A 1980s rayon leisure shirt, a 1980s silk, cotton & lambswool beaded jumper, a 1970s tweed jacket, a strange fake fur-trimmed linen coat with pointed cuffs, a British army parka, a 1970s nautical handknit, Toast side-zip ankle grazers (the first time I've come across Toast in a chazza, and marked down to £1, too!) , a 1970s novelty print shirt, a vintage Jaeger midi skirt, a Joules wide-brimmed hat, a St Michael 1980s midi dress, a 1980s English-made leopard embellished jacket, a 1980s Bernshaw wrap dress and a vintage African basket.

I know I said I was on a book buying ban but Lawrence Durrell, Philippa Gregory and Elizabeth I for £1? I couldn't say no!

Here's some local street art I've not shared before, it's Women's Work by Rose Garrard, unveiled in May 1998 by the now-retired Labour MP Clare Short and situated in Bilston town centre, this morning's charity shopping spot. 

Standing four metres high this bronze sculpture of a female beside a pit-head gantry commemorates the impoverished women working in the 19th-century coal and iron industries of the Black Country. Women's Work is situated close to the site of a former ‘fold’, a cluster of small hovels where families lived and the women of which forged tiny items such as nails, chain links and pulleys, selling them to merchants in order to survive.  

These items have been fused into the clothing of the statue, her head is a small anvil and her forearms are the tongs used for holding the hot metal.  Her feet are flat irons, whilst the back of her skirt is composed of stacked cooking pots as local women were later employed in nearby factories making cast iron cooking pots and flat irons as well as in large laundries where they put the irons to use.  The figure is stooped over to support her burden of coal, the constant position of a ‘pit-bank wench’ paid to work bowed down all day to reclaim any usable lumps of coal from the slag heaps at the pit head.

After photographing and laundering our finds, I stripped off my makeup, walked into town and spent two hours in the salon having eyelash extensions applied, I've only visited beauty salons a handful of times in my life and on the rare occasion that I do, I wonder why I don't do it more often, it's wonderfully relaxing.

I'm off to drink rum. Sending love to you all. See you in March!