Good Friday!

It's Good Friday and therefore a public holiday in the UK which, if you're not religious or someone who gets holiday pay, is little more than a minor annoyance. As they're council-run, the swimming baths are closed today so we had to swap our Friday session in the big pool (below) to Thursday. On Fridays the entire pool is open for public swimming but on Thursday its lane swimming only. There's two speed options, medium or fast, and, as everyone keeps telling me what a strong swimmer I am, I opted for the fast lane and to my delight I was able to keep up with the female powerhouse swimming alongside me, clocking up a mile before our Spoons breakfast. This probably means sod all to most of you but to me, who has never in my fifty-eight and a half years on the planet considered themselves in the slightest bit sporty, I feel like I've been reborn!

Anyway, on to the rest of the week. After a warm-ish day on Tuesday, Wednesday was bitterly cold with a cruel east wind. We headed over to Birmingham to visit our regular charity shops and, just like when we'd last visited, came back laden with some fantastic vinyl...vintage and modern. What do you think, Stephanie? 

Like any human in their right mind I already own Back To Black on CD (and had the privilege of seeing Amy Winehouse play live several times) but obviously vinyl is far superior ...and this is the original release, not one of the many later reissues.

It's quite unusual to find contemporary vinyl in the chazzas and Jon soon snapped up 6Music indie favourites, Glass Animals & Bombay Bicycle Club. 

I absolutely love Shawn Mendes' Señorita but as this isn't the later deluxe pressing of this, his third album, it's not on there. However, what we did discover, tucked away inside the sleeve is an official signed photo, maybe the previous owner went off him. Can you see Gordon? He's making himself very comfy.

I couldn't resist these Orla Kiely-inspired earrings. Although I'm all about big earrings I wear studs when I swim.

  These deadstock Disco mugs were £1.50 each. They were made up the road at Royal Stafford in The Potteries which sadly went into administration last month after 180 years of ceramic production.

Jon splashed out £3 on a shirt which matches our bedroom wall beautifully. It was originally from Joe Browns who make some great menswear and homewares but the women's clothing leaves a lot to be desired. 

Yet again I wore my embroidered velvet Naked Generation "Amber" dress, I still can't believe my friend Annie spotted it on Vinted for £12. The wind was playing havoc with the hem when Jon took these photos, I'm amazed I managed to keep my hat on! 

Thursday (swimming day) was thankfully a lot warmer so I wore my Groundies with bare legs (makes stripping off in the changing room a lot easier). I'm wearing a vintage India Imports of Rhode Island maxi skirt, an All About Audrey wrap top (bought in 2017) and a reversible block printed quilted cotton jacket from Kharibu (bought in 2023). The jacket did have a collar but it was forever getting tangled up in my hair so I chopped it off and replaced it with some bias binding. 

The builders brought us gifts, two solar powered garden Buddhas which a house round the corner had left on their garden wall with a free sign attached.

Good to see our billions of bluebells starting to flower. It'll be the Irises next. 

The base is starting to take shape, we're awaiting another delivery of sand for work to continue.

Someone's left their mark in the cement.

Still glowing from my 3.75km run this morning, I went coatless when I walked down the road to drop off my Vinted sales parcels. I wore a vintage Mohanjeet, Paris woven cotton maxi skirt (£5, Vinted) with this embroidered linen Free People jacket (£3, Air Ambulance)...

And another day of bare legs and trainers, this time they're my gold Adidas Continentals, a reissue of the 1980s classics...which Jon found in Age UK a couple of months ago. 

Swimming, running, wearing trainers...whatever next? Brace yourselves, I've been cooking, too. (I haven't been taken over by an alien, honest!)

Tidying the kitchen cupboards earlier in the week I found a tin of golden syrup five years past its use-by date as well as a jar of organic coconut oil reaching the end of its life so when I got back from my swim I decided to have a go at making some vegan flapjacks adapting a recipe I found online. (I'm aware that my American readers concept of a flapjack is completely different to ours, same words, different language!) 

You'll need:

3 and a half cups of porridge oats
1 cup of mixed seeds & dried fruit 
Half a cup of demerara sugar
Three-quarters of a cup of coconut oil (melted)
Half a cup of golden syrup

Method:

1. Line a 8 x 8 baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir until everything is incorporated.
3. Transfer to the baking tray and level with the back of a spoon.
4. Cook at 180°C for 17 - 20 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown
5. Leave to cool in the tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Once cool slice into bars.

Store them in an airtight tin - not necessarily a vintage one like mine which originally held Co-operative biscuits in the late 1950s - but the vintage version IS generally the best version!

Have a fabulous weekend whether or not you do the Easter thing. See you on the other side!