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

The Distancing Diaries - 10th & 11th February, 2021

Can I start by saying thank you for your amazing feedback regarding my thoughts on not whingeing and learning to live with and adapt to our new normal way of life. Your comments were so uplifting and fabulous that several people have messaged me to say how much of a boost reading them has been. I might have swapped hedonism for housework, backpacking for block walks and larging it for litter picking but until I breathe my last, I shall continue to enjoy life.

Wednesday was another bitterly cold and snowy day. I did my Wii Fit workout, put a load on to wash, swept the rugs in the middle room, joined Jon for breakfast and hung up the laundry to dry in the utility room. The mobile mechanic arrived to take the works van away as Jon was worried about how it was driving. Goodness knows when we'll need a works van again (another of our regular festivals has just announced that it wouldn't be going ahead) but it's as well to have it ready to go when we do.

Wear:Sleep:Repeat continued with Tuesday's dress, this time worn with an Afghan blouse, also by Janet Wood for Monsoon. With a case of chronic hat hair I decided on another fishtail plait.

The details: Charity shopped Doc Martens, vintage Afghan cuffs (eBay) and enamelled earrings from FabIndia (Goa, 2018) 

I spent the morning photographing vintage hats and, after a break for noodles, uploaded and listed them on eBay.

It's been over a year since I went through our stock of hats and we had hours of fun trying them on. I'm not sure if this 1960s fake fur creation by British hatmakers Jacoll makes Jon look like the lovechild of Bojo and Trump or his old bandmate, Tim Burgess.

Did I mention that I'd had a bit of a spree on ebay recently? That's one aspect of lockdown life that hasn't changed - my ability to find fabulous secondhand & vintage gear on-line. Three out of the four parcels arrived with Richard the postman after lunch including this jacket that was listed as being in a bit of a state. The seller had removed the frayed cuffs with the intention of replacing them (but fortunately had the foresight to keep them) and one of the rouleaux loops had broken - but I knew I could restore her to her former glory. It's possibly the most beautiful early Anokhi piece I've ever seen.

I'd also bought another Amor Lux Breton (at a tenth of the retail price) and a modern Anokhi block printed maxi length kaftan which was listed as an absurdly low Buy-it-Now and will be perfect for floating around the garden in the summer - 'cos I'm pretty sure we won't be going much further!

After a catch-up with Liz on the phone I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my Anokhi jacket.

We were just finishing our tea (haloumi with roasted potatoes and vegetables) when the mechanic dropped the van back. Jon had been on tenterhooks all day expecting the bill to run into £££s but it came to just over £100 for parts and labour. What a find that chap was!

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Later we opened the rum and started watching 23 Morde (23 Crimes), a German detective thriller, as well as the first in the latest series of The Great Pottery Throwdown. Having never watched it before or knowing anything about pottery whatsoever - it wasn't on Jon or I's school syllabus - I'd inadvertantly watched a bit the other night and was intruiged. It was great fun although it's put me off ever trying pottery, it seems terribly stressful.

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Thursday was another bitterly cold day, I'd cracked the ice in the bird bath twice by 7am. I put away the previous day's laundry and did my Wii Fit workout before joining Jon for our fruit & yogurt breakfast. I wrapped the eBay sales ready for Friday's post office run then swept the stairs and the upstairs rugs.

Wear:Sleep:Repeat saw me rewearing the vintage Janet Wood for Monsoon Afghan blouse, this time with my new-to-me Ritu Kumar block printed midi dress, I'd recently snaffled from eBay, and my me-made pom pom hat. It might have been -5°C out there but with my thermal body suit, leggings and two thin cotton layers I was lovely and warm...not that I intended on spending much time outdoors. We've even forfeited our block walk this week. I've heard rumours it'll be 9°C next week, I'll have to dust my bikini off. 

The details: Mum's Biba boots (last seen on Monday), Turquoise earrings made by Afghan refugees for charity (Ebay) and an assortment of tribal bangles.

The photos were getting too small to see on my Wear:Sleep:Repeat collage so I've divided it into two parts.

The final of my eBay parcels arrived which again, I tore open and loved on sight. Jon said it would be the perfect dress for Corfu....we can but dream! It's by Anokhi from East's Artisan range. If you weren't already aware, East went bust a few years ago but relaunched in 2019 following a buyout by a group of loyal customers and maintains its bang-on ethics. Check them out HERE (I'm not sponsored by East but I wish I was!)

After a break for noodles I spent the afternoon with my Anokhi jacket. I'd already reattached the cuffs and repaired the rouleaux loop the previous day so it was a pleasant couple of hours spent Boro mending with 6Music for company. 

In the olden days when Jon & I were allowed to visit National Trust gardens (back in 2020) and ate our sandwiches in the van listening to the radio, we used to joke that 6Music DJ Shaun Keaveney had broken into the house whilst we were out and ransacked our vinyl. Listening to this earlier was a real blast from the past. Liz & I saw S'Express at the Birmingham Institute in 1988. Mark Moore dressed as he usually did, like a 1970s pimp, lounging on a leopardskin chaise in the middle of the stage. We went over on the 51 bus and got chased along the subway by some dodgy blokes - some things in life never change, do they?

Nothing dodgy about this jacket now I've fixed it. I wonder how many Wear:Sleep:Repeat outfits it will take before I can squeeze it in...

Of course, being a good girl I donated a waistcoat, a jacket, a silk scarf and two dresses to the Kinky Shed and popped three pairs of tights and a pair of socks into the rag bag. Along with four paperbacks and two boxes of black hair dye (I'm a dark chocolate woman these days) that's my one in, three out rule abided by. 

Tea was cauliflower cheese (made by me) with some saag aloo sausages from the supermarket, a bit like a veg pakora and rather tasty, especially with a glass of Timothy Taylor's Landlord on the side. 

The cold snap is set to continue so tomorrow will be a morning of catching up with blog comments instead of our regular heritage walk. 

Stay safe & see you soon.

The Distancing Diaries - 31st January & 1st February, 2021

 Despite it not being his turn, Jon felt sorry for me & my gammy hip (yes, it's back) and insisted on getting up and making tea and we read in bed until 9am when we tuned into the Andrew Marr Show in the kitchen, ate toast and swapped a few more plants over to soak in the utility room sink.

Jon popped out for groceries, then continued with the hard drive file swapover. Meanwhile I swept the downstairs rugs, boiled some sad looking spuds for turning into potato salad later, painted my nails and finished my book in the lounge.

Wear:Sleep:Repeat continued with Saturday's 1970s polo neck, worn with another of my Afghan dresses (bought from a trader friend at a vintage fair in 2018), a charity shopped vintage leather belt and my me-made pompom hat.

The details: Barry M's Evergreen nail paint, Afghan Kuchi pendant (bought from pals, Old's Cool Traders), white metal earrings made by Afghan refugees and Frye Campus boots (bought new in their box from eBay for £35, the retail price was £335)

After noodles we sat for an hour and did the Big Garden Birdwatch, something we've wanted to take part in for years but have always been away in India. Typical, isn't it? Normally our garden is jam packed with birds but on the day of the count we hardly had any - a gang of magpies, some clinically obese wood pigeons, Robin S, Mr & Mrs Blackbird and a gaggle of long tailed tits.

Our birding hour paled into insignifance compared to the birdwatching adventure we had in the remote and almost lunar landscape of Kutch in Gujarat back in 2018 (HERE).

Despite Jon's pleas for me to take it easy I insisted we walked around the block. I always feel better after exercise. Back at home I wrapped my eBay parcels ready for Tuesday's post office run and went through the book pile for this week's bedtime reading. I've read quite a few of Anne Tyler's books,  A Spool of Blue Thread being the most recent.

Tea was corn on the cob, homemade potato salad (I managed to find a few chives in the border outside that had survived the snow) and a slice of No Bull vegan Wellington. 

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We finished watching The Investigation on Saturday night and discovered Finnish thriller Bullets on Channel 4's Walter Presents. Produced by the team behind The Bridge, The Killing and The Millenium Trilogy films, if you're a Scandi Noir fanatic, you won't need to ask if it's any good. 

I could hardly sleep on Sunday night. We had eye tests booked on Monday morning and the excitement of having something written on the calendar was almost too much to bear. I did my Wii Fit workout, Jon joined me for breakfast and we headed into town, getting to the opticians at just before 9am. Our checkups were a couple of months overdue and we'd been wary about booking but when we'd walked past on our way to Stafford Street on Friday we'd been reassured by the Covid measures. Appointments only to be booked online, no entry without a mask, perspex screens...all the usual stuff. Being frontline healthcare workers all the staff have had their jabs. If you're worried, please don't be, Specsavers are brilliant.

My obsolete specs collection - I can get them reglazed in India when I'm allowed back

Both of us have a family history of glaucoma which entitles us to free NHS annual eye tests. I thought my near vision had deteriorated and it had. Typically, I'd only splashed out on new glasses and prescription sunglasses in November 2019 although I can't really complain as I've worn them constantly. Leaving Jon to his examination I browsed the frames on display - tricky to chose wearing a mask and having to put every pair I tried on in a plastic crate for the store to disinfect made me feel quite guilty despite the assistant reassuring me that it really didn't matter as long as I'd found the right ones. Once I'd selected my new frames & been measured up, Jon handed over two exisiting pairs of glasses he'd opted to have reglazed - his prescription had also changed. The optician had commented that my eyes were really dry (too much screen time) so leaving Jon to pay the bill I popped up to Boots for some eye drops. 

We walked back up the Hill of Doom where, back at home, a package was awaiting Jon, a tin of Sex Pistols plectrums, a little treat I'd found him on eBay.

My Wear:Sleep:Repeat challenge saw me rewearing Sunday's Afghan dress backwards....

 Along with a mirrored Banjara waistcoat I bought from Colaba Causeway in Mumbai back in 2015 and Mum's original Biba lace-up boots.

The details: Indian block printed mask, Frida Kahlo earrings (festival neighbours, Shilpa Silver) and Indian silver pendant (Goa, 2016)

After our lunchtime noodles I repotted a few houseplants, wrapped up more ebay sales and took photos of pretty dresses in the garden which I uploaded to ebay. I did question the wisdom of listing party frocks, five weeks into lockdown, but got an offer minutes after I'd uploaded them.

Walsall's made the national headlines today, we're one of eight places in England where the new South African Covid variant has been found, with no links to any international travel. So far it's not in our part of town, just Tony's and he's not allowed to leave the hosue until he's been tested - as if having a lockdown birthday on Wednesday wasn't bad enough! In addition to all that excitement we've been issued with weather warnings for snow & freezing rain tonight. 2021, the gift that keeps on giving!

Tea was a veggie burger on crusty bread with some melted blue cheese, salad & the rest of yesterday's potato salad. We'll be watching more of Bullets later.

Stay safe, stay sane and see you soon!