All Change!

Don't worry, I'm not talking about New Year's resolutions, they're not my thing. I can tell you already that 2025 will be mostly be spent wasting time and money searching for rare and beautiful clothes, taking far too many holidays and having as much fun as is humanely possible without getting arrested. Why change the habits of a lifetime? Oh yes, and because we're not normal, we aren't going to any NYE parties, Jon and I started a tradition a few years ago and choose to celebrate waking up alive on New Year's Day so we'll be heading to the pub tomorrow instead.  

The change I'm referring to is finally hanging the collection of vintage framed prints which have propped up against the landing wall for the last couple of years, gathering dust and inevitably causing one of us an injury when we crash into them on the way to the bathroom in the dead of night.

I've been obsessed with Flamenco dancers since my Dad bought me a doll back from a business trip he took to Madrid when I was five. The little circular Vermeer print was 50p in a charity shop. The vintage kaftan by Jake in India, a label which was sold in Liberty back in the early 1970s, was snaffled for a pittance from Vinted on Boxing Day and arrived this morning.

The black wallpaper is by Laura Ashley, bought in the early noughties, the patchwork bedcover, curtains and bolster were all made by me using knackered vintage clothes, curtains and bedlinen.

More Spanish art, A Spanish Dancer by Scottish artist, Sir William Russell Flint (1880 - 1969) and Toreador by French artist, Bernard Buffett (1928 – 1999). I've had the Buffett print for so long, he was still alive when I bought it. The pink velvet noticeboard is a new addition, bought this morning. My Radical calendar is ready for me to open tomorrow and scribble my dates on - read about this fabulous company here although, if you're the kind of person who describes people like me as woke, you'd probably implode.

Good old Tina, who's constantly moving around the house, along with one of Norman Parkinson's 1970s fashion shoots for Vogue (and another of my obsessions as a kid) - both chazza shop finds. The lining paper was painted with Farrow and Ball's Down Pipe when we bought the house almost 19 years ago and were trying to be historically accurate with Georgian paint colours. The room's in dire need of redecoration but I can think of better ways to spend our time and money (travel!) 

The Trechnikoff Rose in the Workshop is a rare signed print and cost a quid from a charity shop years ago. The 1950s teak antelope was a present from Liz a few Xmases back which I'd been meaning to hang for ages. 

Decluttering is definitely not going to be a New year's resolution...I love my stuff! 

Although I'm selling more than I'm buying on Vinted there's a few new-to-me things creeping in - like this incredible Suzani coat reworked from a vintage Uzbek chapan. Expect to see a lot more of it in 2025!

The weather's not been ideal for outfit photos and, as I'm typing this, the wind's getting up and the windows are rattling, so I've been posing indoors. Transforming the former shit tip into the magnificently moody music room with a metallic ceiling was probably one of our biggest achievements in 2024.

Today's outfit for collecting parcels and going sofa browsing (will 2025 finally be the year I convince Jon to ditch the knackered leather settee for an opulent velvet one?) I'm wearing a Dilli Grey Indian cotton block printed midi dress (bought in December, 2022) with some Clarks platforms (January, 2023) and a charity-shopped tribal necklace. 

Contemporary Afghan-style dress (Vinted) and burgundy leather cowboy boots (Urban Outfitters sale) worn for a trip to the chazzas. We spent £11 & came home with two incredible coffee table books, one on the world history of art and the other on the art on display in Birmingham Art Gallery, a Finnish merino wool polo neck for Jon and an Indian embroidered cotton blouse for me.

A Dilli Grey block printed cotton maxi skirt (October, 2022) and a vintage 1970s Anokhi quilted blouse with bishop sleeves (eBay, 2020), the gormless expression is all my own! You can't see my feet but I'm wearing my trusty Frye Campus boots, bought new in their box (labelled £335) via Ebay in July 2019 for £35. This was for a walk into town to drop off our Vinted sales. 

Vintage Phool midi skirt (part of a suit, online seller, 2019), All About Audrey art silk wrap top (Vinted), 190s Liberty, London silk scarf (car boot sale, 2009), River Island cap (via the charity shop, 2022) and my Mum's original 1960s Biba boots for a walk into town with more Vinted sales parcels. 

Wishing you all a happy & healthy New Year! 

Thanks so much for your continued friendship, comments, messages, cards and letters, you're the best. xxx

In The Bleak Midwinter

Despite the bitterly cold temperatures and the dense layer of fog which hadn't shifted since Boxing Day, we felt the need for a winter walk. Our destination was the Shugborough Estate in Staffordshire, twenty-two miles from home.

Although we visit regularly, here's a brief history to any readers unfamiliar with one of our nearest National Trust properties. Built on the site of a moated medieval bishop's castle, Shugborough was bought by the wealthy Anson family in 1624 for £4,000 (a fortune at the time) but it was torn down in 1693 to create a more fashionable country house. The building was enlarged in 1745 creating the Georgian mansion which stands today. 

Thomas Anson (1695 - 1773), great-grandson of the original owner, inherited the Shugborough Estate from his brother, George, who was formerly the First Lord of the Admiralty. Originally trained in law, Thomas abandoned this and decided, like much of the wealthy young men of the time, to take The Grand Tour. After his travels around Europe, Thomas came home and wanted to make Shugborough his own perfect paradise. His landscape creation was ground-breaking as it included some of the first neo-Greek structures in the country by architect Thomas Wright.

The fog and bitter cold worked to our advantage. Normally at this time of year, Shugborough would be heaving with visitors but as you can see from the photos, we had the estate almost to ourselves, no dodging kamikaze kids on their Xmas bikes or being licked to death by over-excited dogs.

 

Although I love the clean lines and the perfect proportions of Georgian architecture, the mansion's slate frontage, sanded down to resemble stone, looks very bleak and foreboding beneath that blanket of freezing fog.

This sign always makes us laugh.

Inspired by the Horologion of Andronikos Kyrrhestes in Athens, The Tower of the Winds was built in 1765 and once sat in the centre of the village pond until modified in 1805 to house a dairy for Lady Anson. We've visited the Horologion in Athens and its a near-perfect replica. 

The Ruin, built in 1750, once stood next to a colonnade which was swept away by a great flood in 1795.

The Chinese House, built in 1747, was designed to celebrate George Anson’s visit to China and triumphal return to Britain. It was based on original sketches taken from garden architecture Anson and his crew saw in Guangzhou (formerly Canton) in 1742. The scheme, which also incorporated two Chinese style bridges and a boat house was one of the first garden buildings in Britain to reflect the fashion of Chinoiserie. 

Built some time between 1748 and 1756, the Shepherd's Monument bears what has become known as The Shugborough Inscription, a mysterious sequence of letters carved on a lower plane and said to be one of the world's top uncracked cyphertexts. Based on the brief reference made to the monument in the pseudohistorical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, some believe that there could be a connection between the monument and the Holy Grail. 

The Essex Bridge, straddling the River Trent, is a Grade I listed packhorse bridge, built in the late 16th Century by Elizabeth I's favourite, the Duke of Essex, who lived nearby. 

Built in 1760, the Doric Temple is a copy of the Temple of Hemphaistos in Athens. I usually pose inside for a photo but it was roped off as it currently forms part of the festive light installations. 

Instead I had to make do with this cast iron bench and the marvellously knobbly trees.

 

The Cat’s Monument, is thought to be created in around 1750 and believed to either commemorate George Anson’s cat or Thomas’ Persian Cat, Kouli Khan. 

The disco balls form part of the Luminate installation, which run every evening throughout December and January. 

Bloody hell, look at that bleak Winter vista...roll on Spring, that's all I can say! 

Erected in 1814 and cast in the nearby town of Rugeley, the not very imaginatively named Blue Bridge created a welcome splash of colour on such a grey day.

The somewhat dilapidated Boat House.

Normally we'd climb the hill to Hadrian's Arch but we could no longer feel our faces so retreated to the car for sandwiches and mugs of tea. 

Shugborough

Milford, near Stafford, Staffordshire, ST17 0UP

Gardens open every day from 9am until 4pm. The house is closed until Spring.

Thanks for reading, see you soon!