Beautiful Days

Much to our delight the great British heatwave continued throughout the weekend. On Saturday morning we popped out for some festival booze before another day of sun worshipping.

I snaffled this AND/OR embroidered, unbleached linen top for £1.50 when we'd been charity shopping the previous day which I wore with my TopShop "Mom" shorts and the Superga flatforms I'd also found on Friday (the whole outfit cost £4.50!) Jon wore a charity-shopped Pull & Bear shirt and cotton chambray shorts, both purchased from the clearance chazza earlier in the year.

I'd laundered, steamed and done running repairs on the charity shop stuff we'd bought on Friday and put it away in the Kinky Shed - ready to restock the rails after next week's festival.

There's a Superdry leather biker jacket (£179.99 on their website), a vintage 1980s Lee American-made denim shirt, a Polo Ralph Lauren seersucker riding jacket (originally £549), a gents' wool & cord waistcoat, a 1970s Bagcraft faux leopard bag (by appointment to HM the Queen), a 1970s Italian-made tunic by St Michael, a 1980s jumper (made in Cyprus), a 1970s fake fur, a Toast blazer (made in England from Yorkshire cloth), a camo jacket, mens cowboy boots, a corset decorated with hand stitched fake ivy leaves and a 1970s Safari shirt.

 I finished It's All Greek To Me, the book I'd started the previous day, and then got stuck into Gerald Durrell's Birds, Beasts and Relatives, the second book in the My Family and Other Animals trilogy.

We walked across town to Liz and Adrian's house, who'd invited us and Liz & Al for tea - great company and amazing food eaten in their beautiful garden. Unfortunately, I think I'd had too much sun and the evening came to a close far too soon.

On Sunday morning we dropped off a bag of donations at the clearance charity shop and - for a change - only came back with a handful of things, the Vietnamese tailor-made brocade dress seen in the top left hand corner of my collage, a couple of books and an enamel compost bin. Whilst there we bumped into our friend, Dawn, who's as obsessed with the place as we are and very kindly gave me this amazing vintage St Michael babydoll set which was her nan's.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it was another scorchingly hot, gloriously sunny day. Jon wore a psychedelic tiger print shirt bought from a charity shop the day before we flew to Crete. 

I wore this crazy cotton & metallic dress for the first time - it's by Sundress, designed in France, made in India and retailed at £159.99 in Harvey Nichols earlier this year - mine was new with tags from eBay and cost £20 including postage. The 1970s straw hat is by Bermona Trend, the necklace by Yasmin Le Bon and, along with the basket, they're all charity shop finds.

It's a very clever garment, it has an elastic top enabling it to be worn as a maxi skirt or you can unbutton the bottom layer and wear it as a mini dress (or a midi skirt) and there's a sash belt included, too. Perfect for holidays (or for lounging under a tree in the garden, like I did!)

I finished Gerald Durrell's book and started on Nine Perfect Strangers, which I'd picked up in the clearance charity shop earlier in the day.

After tea we watched the last couple of episodes of Black Bird, highly recommended if you like chilling thrillers. The screenplay was written by Dennis Lehane - an exceptional author and, if you're still not convinced, it was Ray Liotta's last ever role.

By Monday morning, it had cooled down to 24°C. We walked down to the baths for a half-mile swim and had breakfast in 'Spoons. Needless to say, we had to pop into the charity shops on the way home. Jon found this insane shirt from James Darby, Nottingham. Look at the perfect alignment of the lion on the front of the shirt (what a shame it's about three sizes too big!)

After pegging the washing on the line, I packed my festival wardrobe of psychedelia and sequins whilst Jon popped out for fuel and fresh produce.

Jon repeated last Monday's outfit, wearing the Zara Man cotton fine knit from the clearance charity shop and his organic cotton shorts.

  

I wore a Monsoon mirror embellished ikat maxi, bought from the clearance charity shop last year and rapidly becoming one of my most worn dresses, which I teamed with a metallic straw basket (bought from a charity shop years ago) and the Monsoon leather sandals I'd found in the £1 chazza on Friday.

I used up the rest of the courgettes and fresh ginger from last week's Lidl Waste Not box and made a spicy courgette cake.

I adapted THIS recipe - substituting the cinnamon with 2" of fresh grated ginger. I used self-raising flour instead of plain flour, halved the amount of sugar and chucked in 3oz of dried cranberries and almonds. We sampled a couple of slices with a mug of tea and will take the rest of it for a halfway snack on our 160 mile journey to Devon tomorrow morning. 

If you're wondering, we're off to Beautiful Days, an independant family festival run by legendary rockers, The Levellers. It's the first time we've traded here - and it's not through lack of trying, I've been applying for years. Even if sales aren't great it's a cracking line-up!

Bring on the wet wipes and the cans of G 'n'T. We'll see you on the other side!