Vintage Vixen: Blessed Are The Cheesemakers

After almost a month of using Darlaston baths, on Wednesday the Gala pool was finally up and running and I was beside myself with excitement.

Expecting my mile swim to be followed by a Spoons breakfast and a look around the charity shops, I wore this 1970s maxi in celebration, only to discover that the kitchen was closed for refurbishment so we went straight back home. The dress didn't go unnoticed, it got lots of love on TikTok.

I've got a bit of a thing about chokers at the moment so I raided Mrs Kaur's shop for braid and made a few of my own. I'm wearing the purple one with my dress.

After Monday morning's frost and Tuesday's bitter chill, Wednesday afternoon brought a hailstorm of biblical proportions. Thursday felt a little more Spring-like so I thought I'd give this 1970s printed cotton pinafore dress by David Silverman an outing.

A 50-plus influencer recently claimed that floral dresses worn with denim jackets were a no-no for older women and loads of her followers promised never to dress like that ever again. Don't people have minds of their own? Would you change your style on the word of a stranger on the internet? I'm the opposite, as soon as I read a comment like that, I develop a desperate urge to dress in that way and immediately pulled on the Levi's Type 1 denim jacket I'd scored from Vinted last month.

I needed to collect a Vinted parcel so Jon and I had a leisurely stroll down to the pickup point, a former vetinary clinic but now a Kurdish-run convenience store. It's an amazingly well-stocked shop, the array of artisan chocolate and European savoury snacks is astonishing and I counted seven varieties of cheese in the fridge (Gouda, Edam, Cheddar, Feta, Paneer, Haloumi and Stilton). One of the young men who works there told me he'd seen me on the internet so, if he's reading this, hello!!

Check out the groovy label on my Vinted purchase! Anthea Proud was best known for her high-end girl's dresses, often made from Liberty fabric, in the 1960s and 1970s. This grown-up sized dress was listed as being damaged and priced accordingly. I love a bit of mending and soon repaired the damaged area.

As wel as being a talented designer, Anthea Proud also had a well-known husband, Ian Davidson. As well as being an acclaimed screen writer (TV credits included Sorry, The Two Ronnies and The Brittas Empire), he also appeared in my Dad's favourite programme, Monty Python's Flying Circus.

And here's the dress in all its glory, worn to walk down to the swimming pool at 7am this morning.

After our swim we walked to Wetherspoons only to discover that the kitchen wasn't reopening until lunchtime so, with time to kill before the shops opened, we popped into the Co-op and had coffee and toasted teacakes in Coffee Republic. We were surprised when the server asked if we wanted jam with our teacakes, is that normal? Surely there's only one thing you spread on teacakes...butter!

The calm before the storm...it was rammed by the time we left.

I've not posted about our film/TV viewing for a while so this is what we've been watching lately.

The two films we've seen were uber-stylish heist movie Crime 101 with man of the moment, Barry Keoghan and Gus Van Sant's Dead Man's Wire, based on the true story of a botched kidnapping in 1977. In real time, we've been gripped to The Capture, Race Across The World (Jo & Kush for the win!) and loved the fourth series of Dark Winds. We've binge-watched the second and third series of the tense Irish crime thriller, Hidden Assets and finally got around the watching Fargo, I've no idea why its taken us so long as we absolutely loved the film and adore anything by the Coen Brothers.

Not name dropping or anything but Fargo's Martin Freeman (and his mate, Jason Watkins) visited our stall when we used to trade at London's Classic Car Boot and is so lovely - he actually came over and introduced himself to us...like we didn't know who he was! I've even got a photo to prove it....