Stop me if you've seen this one before...

....Actually, don't bother,  I'm sure all my regular readers will recognise what I'm wearing. I've owned this Van Allan printed cotton maxi dress (and her green twin) for over twenty years, purchased from eBay in 2001 from the original owner. With them she enclosed a note sharing their history. She'd bought the pair of them with her earnings from her Saturday job in Van Allen in 1970 and had worn the blue one to the Isle of Wight Festival where she'd seen, amongst other acts, Jimi Hendrix. I love that this dress has shared the air with possibly one of the coolest men to have walked the planet.

 I've worn it to many festivals over the years from Glastonbury to the now defunct, Big Chill, I've been to all-dayers in Spoons and pub crawls around Birmingham, it's been clubbing in Mumbai and negotiated the backwaters of Kerala in a canoe. On Tuesday it accompanied me to the baths before Mushrooms Benedict in Walsall's Wetherspoons.

Its been worn with Doc Martens, clogs, wellies and even buffalo leather sandals, made to measure while I sat on the roadside in Mysore. I've thrown shawls over the top to visit Hindu temples in Tamil Nadu and fake fur coats to keep off the chill at 3am around a festival campfire. Over the years it's been accessorised with 25l backpacks, tooled leather shoulder bags and raffia clutches. This time it was a Diesel denim jacket, a raffia and leather basket adorned with applique stars and a pair of white plimsols with glittery toecaps. Look at Polly Piglet, its been six years since we lost her but I still get weepy when I see her photo. 

Somewhat discombobulated with the Bank Holiday weekend, Tuesday felt odd. After our swim (40 lengths!) and Spoons breakfast we muddled through, wrapping the eBay parcels which Jon failed to drop off at the Post Office as the queue was out of the door and flowing onto the car park outside. I photographed and listed a few things on eBay whilst Jon did some work on Gilbert and we were visited by both Ollie and Mr Trousers. 

After a month of twice-weekly swims my swimsuit was looking a bit tatty and failing to find anything suitable in the chazzas I browsed a well-known British sports discount website and found this crazy pop art beauty. It claims to be extra durable, is chlorine resistant and guaranteed for a year and, even better, was 75% off the original price. I can't wait to see it in real life!

Wednesday was charity shopping day. It had been six days since we'd last set foot in a chazza (goodness knows how I stayed sane during those long months of lockdowns!) and I raced through my Wii Fit, breakfast and parcel wrapping to be out bright and early.

This organic cotton Indian block-printed dress is by bang-on ethical label People Tree and made in collaboration with the V&A, copied from an antique Persian textile in their achives. It retailed at £139 and sadly its not my size - but it's already winging itself to a good home. There's also a handmade 1970s tie-neck blouse, a handknit Aran cardi, a Yves St Laurent shirt and a 1980s blouse made in Hong Kong by Jerseymasters. The Fat Face PJ bottoms are for Jon and I'm keeping the American Apparel USA-made shorts and the modern belt with Ancient Greek replica coins. 

A batwing top by Superdry, a handmade vintage mohair jumper, some Original Penguin plimsols (Jon's keeping these), a handmade Aran waistcoat, a 1970s Western belt, a wrapover cotton skirt with the Cortefeil tags still attached (a Spanish fashion chain), a 1980s BHS suede waistcaot and another 1970s tie-neck blouse.

And another vintage cross-body leather bag for the woman who claims not to be into bags! Having studied Russian (unsuccesfully) at school I can recognise the Cyrillic script but haven't a clue what it says.

I wore another old favourite you'll no doubt recognise, a hand-embroidered cotton maxi dress which belonged to ex-blogger, Sabine's German mother in the 1960s. She sent it me in 2010 and it has popped up on my blog with alarming regularly in the last 12 years, the most memorable outing was probably when it visited the Taj Mahal with me in 2019.

On Wednesday I wore a second-hand embroidered cotton blouse originally from Zara, some Topshop gold boots (just peeking out from below the hem) bought in their sale five years ago and a gold bag made from recycled scraps of leather from Jaipur.

Laundry done and pegged out in the 16°C sunshine to dry, I started my next book, Names for the Sea, a memoir of British academic Sarah Moss and her family who relocated to Iceland. If the cold wasn't bad enough, the non-existence of secondhand shops, poor public transport and the lack of fresh fruit & veg in the shops has me shuddering.

Wandering around for some dandelion leaves to add to Jacob's lunch of homegrown rocket and lettuce I was thrilled to see that more of our tulips were out.

 And the leaves on the hostas, grown from bulbs last year, were gradually unfurling.

Instagram w*nker time - here's Wednesday night's tea, Jon's homemade paneer and ladies finger Punjabi masala served with lemon & jasmine scented basmati rice. This was followed by lashings of rum and cola, a couple more instalments of The Cane Field Killings, Secrets of the Museum (the BBC's fascinating series about the V&A) and Interior Design Challenge with Alan Carr.

Thursday meant another charity shopping trip (the results of which are currently in a heap in the middle of the lounge). I wore the 1970s gingham maxi I'd bought for £1 from Cancer UK back in 2010.

I wore it with some vintage Polaroid sunglasses and my TopShop cropped army jacket along with a Jasmine Le Bon gilt necklace, another recent charity shop buy.

...and some ridiculous earrings I'd spotted on eBay.

This dress has had loads of fun in the twelve years I've owned it, worn whilst trading at vintage fairs and festivals and for days out with friends. Here's the first time I met Curtise and we're in Wetherspoons (where else?) I hadn't worn it for a while and took it to sell at The End of the Road last year where it won most tried on garment of the festival. Sadly for our customers nobody could get the zip up which I decided was a sign for me to keep it apparently being the only woman in existence it fits.

Lord Jon's getting plenty of wear out of the three organic cotton teeshirts we found in the Air Ambulance charity shop (or the Ambo, as we call it). He road-tested the Original Penguin plimsols he'd found in the charity shop on Wednesday and showing off the Raybans (made in Italy, not Chinese fakes) he found in the British Heart Foundation this morning.

Operation Mincemeat was fantastic, a gripping true life story of deception and with a cast that includes Kelly McDonald, Colin Firth, Penelope Wilton, Matthew McFadyen, Paul Ritter and Jason Isaacs you can't really go wrong. Jon thinks I've taken leave of my senses by booking tickets for The Lost City this afternoon but it looks so ridiculous that I feel compelled to see it.

I'll let you know if it was as daft as it looks!