Nailed It!

Hello! I signed off my last post telling you that Jon had caught my cold. Fortunately it was as short-lived as mine was and he's firing on all cylinders once again. 

 This was Tuesday's outfit. Another of my Dollyrockers dresses (and another gift from my fabulous friends, Lynn and Philip!) which has been in my possession since 2019. Liz bought me this gorgeous brass necklace for Xmas and the Accessorize hat was £2 from the Sue Ryder charity shop back in 2021. The boots, original 1960s Biba, were my Mum's.

I was very excited to get my nails done after my original appointment was postponed due to the snow. 

Apparently like with clothes, there are nail trends, too but me being me, I don't follow the herd , prefering to forge my own path (which pleases my technician Charlotte no end!) My vision was evergreen leaves on a frosty Winter morning, choosing a combination of greens and silvery greys and I absolutely love the result. 

With Jon under the weather I went swimming on my own on Wednesday lunchtime. This vintage maxi skirt, along with the matching off-the-shoulder cropped top, was the grand total of £3.50 from Vinted before Xmas. Rather than wait for the Summer, I decided to give the skirt a solo outing, teaming it with my All About Audrey marmalade velvet wrap top. Although they're massive, it's quite easy to squeeze the sleeves into a coat.

Wednesday is rum night in this house, which we downed whilst watching time-travelling British horror film, Last Night in Soho. An thrilling watch with some fabulous 1960s fashion and music along with cameos from Sixties legends Rita Tushingham, Diana Rigg and Terence Stamp. Currently on catch-up on Channel 4.

After bamboozling ourselves with travel options for Tony's 60th birthday, on Thursday morning we finally booked our trip. Although he'd mentioned sunshine, he's always sending me photos of our time in Athens so I decided to swap sunshine for ancient history...as he reads my blog I can't reveal the location and spoil the surprise! 

Thursday was wet and miserable but I cheered myself up by wearing this incredible 1970s suede skirt I'd found on Vinted for £5...can you believe it had been listed for over a year?  Underneath I wore the £2 Mango sweater dress I'd bought on our charity shopping expedition last week and my beloved exotic snakeskin Gohill's boots, a gift from my former junior school teacher and all round inspirational friend, Eileen (blog post HERE).

We started watching the new series of The Night Manager on the BBC iplayer. It had been 10 years since the first series (and even longer since I'd read the book) and I thought I might need to do a catch up but it all came back to me...and we watched two episodes back to back.

Jon joined me for swimming this morning although he didn't quite manage his usual amount (I do a mile, he does a kilometre).

Liz bought me this Rusty Dusty Indian-made maxi dress for Xmas and as it was a mild morning I thought I'd give it an outing...I could have gone down the hippy chic route but decided I needed to be a cowgirl.

 

After a Spoons breakfast we had a wander around the chazzas. Pickings had been slim on Monday as, due to the snow, nobody had been able to get into town to drop off donations but we made up for it today. 

This is a keeper, I think. It's by Jaase, an Australian Bohemian-chic brand. It's one of those easy to wear, 100% viscose dresses, ethically made in India with pockets and a drawstring waist. Their maxi dresses retail for around £75 so it was a snip at £2.99!

I love this quote! The label belongs to this pile of deadstock (ie., unworn with the original store tags attached) trippy crop tops - and a mini dress - from Topshop concession, Hype. The dress features a stained glass print with Jesus on the back, the others have Rococo designs, pandas, flamingos, chains and digitised leaves. These will be perfect for our festival shop.

Snazzy 1980s Slazenger golfing trousers, always a festival winner!

Some Gothic Lolita girl will look amazing in this Morphyne lace mini dress.

Dereta....classy! This gorgeous 1960s British-made, black cotton velvet maxi skirt is fully lined with a glamorous side split. It shows how much sizes have changed over the decades, this is labelled as a Size 16 and the waist measures 28" (that's a contemporary UK size 10 in some shops!) 

Despite it being a whopping 735 pages long, I've nearly finished This Little Life. It is a hell of a book, a devastating read but with some utterly beautiful moments...for me it's up there with Birdsong and In Memoriam....I've not cried yet but I think it's imminent! This hardback book, Star of the Morning by Kirsten Ellis, snaffled for £1 will be my next read...

The extraordinary story of Lady Hester Stanhope, a wilful young beauty who played society hostess for her uncle, the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger. After his death she set sail with her lover for the Mediterranean and Constantinople. But it was the Middle East where she found her destiny, the first Western woman to cross the Syrian desert and hailed by the Bedouin as their Star of the Morning. From her fortress in Lebanon where she established her own fiefdom, she exercised her canny influence over the region's devious politics. 

Lord Byron met her in Greece and complained she had “a great disregard of received notion in her conversation as well as conduct” - pretty rich coming from Byron! 

As with so many other powerful and intelligent women, Lady Hester was erased from history to fit in with the 19th Century male narrative of women being the weaker sex (and therefore not deserving of being given the vote). 

Thanks for reading and have a fabulous weekend!