Powerful Words & A Few Outfits

 

Hello! How was your weekend? This was mine. 

On Saturday morning I read Mary Beard's groundbreaking Women & Power, a pocket-sized manifesto where the celebrated British classicist explores the gender agenda and shows how history has treated powerful women using examples from both antiquity and the modern age. It starts with an extract from The Odyssey where Penelope, Queen of Ithaca and Odysseus's wife, addresses the public within her own court and she is told by her teenage son, Telemachus, "Mother, go back to your quarters, and take up your own work, the loom and the distaff...speech will be the business of men, all men." 

Penelope - Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Written in around 750BCE, Homer's The Odyssey was the first written evidence of the beginning of Western culture and how an integral part of growing up as a man, was learning to take control of public utterance and to silence the female of the species. At less than 120 pages long, it's one of the most powerful books I've ever read and after reading some of the unspeakably vile comments posted on social media this weekend, victim-shaming the women who dared to speak out about the sexual predator, Russell Brand's crimes, its evident that woman's voices are still being silenced three thousand years after Homer's literary epic. You can buy a secondhand copy HERE.

Anyway, on to the rest of Saturday. After the usual Saturday morning of bed changing, plant watering and leisurely cooked breakfast, I got dressed. I wore a 1970s block printed maxi dress by Geeta Enterprises of Delhi with a 1970s wool felt hat I bought from a charity shop in Cirencester in 2015. 

A damp, cold and misty day, we drove over to Hidden Gem, an antiques centre and auction house in the neighbouring town of Bloxwich. 

Jon loves watches and this Soviet era polar watch caught his eye.

Meanwhile these turquoise beads caught my eye.

I nearly bought that 1970s Toulouse Lautrec mirror, I grew up with the print on the wall. 

We left without buying anything but we'll be back. It was so encouraging to see an independent business thriving.

Back at home I spent the afternoon reading Claire Heywood's The Wandering Queen, a modern day reimagining of Dido & Aeneas. 

I translated Virgil's Aeneid from the original Latin as part of my Classical Studies A Level and found it extremely tedious. These modern day reimaginings, from a largely female perspective, are far more relatable. 

The Meeting of Dido and Aeneus - Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland (1766)

On Friday night we watched Face, a gritty 1997 British heist drama starring, amongst others, Robert Carlisle & Ray Winstone, the late 1990s Indie soundtrack was especially good. On Saturday night we saw Remarkably Bright Creatures, based on the book I'd read a few weeks ago. Although I'm not into cosy stuff, it was a decent watch despite huge chunks of the book being omitted from the film. Like Olivia who commented after I'd mentioned reading the book a few weeks ago, I was concerned that Marcellus's voice wouldn't resemble the one I had in my head but he was played by Alfred Molina, a fine British actor, so my illusions weren't shattered.

On Sunday, awake at 6, I cracked on with The Wandering Queen before breakfast. I'd got a couple of Vinted parcels to drop off so we walked down to Ajay's and then on to Lidl, a distance of around 2.5km. My hip's been dodgy for days - probably due to the drop in temperature and the penetrating damp - and again, stupidly not taking my stick with me, I had to hobble back holding on to Jon's arm. You'll be pleased to know that I've finlly got an appointment with the orthopaedic consultant at the hospital next week, it's been a long wait as I initially saw my GP in April and the appointment's been rearranged three times. 

The return of the suede jackets! 

 

Under my jacket, I wore the vintage silk velvet Laura Ashley maxi skirt I'd bought from the £2.99 charity shop last winter with an embroidered Greek blouse (1970s?) and my Accessorize (via Vinted) corduroy cap. After replacing a broken zip in a skirt, I spent the rest of the day reading with William curled up on my lap. 

We watched Janina Ramirez's Raiders of the Lost Past, Tutankhamen's Secrets on the BBC i-player before finishing season 2 of Breaking Bad. Janina, Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes and David Olusoga, my favourite TV historians! 

In bed I started reading The Wax Child, a tale of witchcraft and persecution, based on the real-life 17th century trial where an unmarried Danish noblewoman and several of her friends are accused of being witches. 

Monday (today) was swimming day.  I clocked up another 2km. I'm much better in the water than I am on dry land (I really am a mermaid!) The pool was very quiet, possibly put off by the dense fog, and by 7.30am there were just 5 of us in the pool.  After breakfast in Spoons we had a look around the chazzas but finding nothing of any interest, we came home with a bag of leeks from the market with which we made a cheese, leek, petit pois filo pastry tart for tea this evening. 

I wore the All About Audrey lace wrap top I bought from Vinted recently (£3!) and a vintage cotton velvet skirt I'd found on Vinted during the height of Summer for £2. The wool fedora was from the clearance section of Decathlon, of all places, last year. 

The damp and foggy conditions not only play havoc with my hip, they also do weird things with my hair. As I'm out tomorrow night I'm washing my hair for a second time in a week (normally I only do this on a beach holiday!) after a liberal application of rosemary oil - great for the hair and scalp and believed to boost mental clarity, concentration and memory. 

I'm off for an evening of culture with my friend Lynn tomorrow night, stay turned to hear all about it!