Five Days in October

What have I been up to since I last posted?

Thursday, being a non-swimming day, kicked off with a 30 minute yoga & muscle-building workout on the Wii Fit. In the words of Caron Wheeler & Soul II Soul, Keep on Movin'! After breakfast I changed into an early 1970s Ritu Kumar for Monsoon midi dress I bought from eBay eight years ago.

These Clarks nubuck biker boots are a recent Vinted acquisition.

We drove over to the council tip to drop off some garden waste before having a rummage in the on-site tip shop. I rescued this jute lampshade from the "free" bin. Back at home I turned it upside down, wedged a ceramic plant saucer in the bottom and popped my Monstera inside. 

Priced at £2.50 but bearing the original price tag of £22.99, this gorgeous gold and blue jute bag reminded me of the bags you always see for sale for £££s in those chi-chi tourist boutiques in Greece. 

There's a few charity shops around the corner from the tip so we had a wander, picking up a needlecord cowboy shirt with snap fasteners for the stockroom plus this choice piece of vintage vinyl, Rod Stewart's album Every Picture Tells a Story, released in 1971, for the princely sum of 50p.

I spent the afternoon trying to sort out my clothes for our upcoming trip. After tea we continued watching Pierre, the new Channel 4 series about a West London duty solicitor starring one of our favourite actors, the wonderful David Harewood OBE. 

Friday was a swimming day so we left the house at 7am, walked into town and were in the water 20 minutes later. I've recently upped my game and now swim 6km a week (that's 3.75 miles in old money). How's the hip? You know what arthritis is like, it changes from day to day but it's only three more weeks until my appointment with the orthopaedic consultant.

After our Spoons breakfast we did a bit of tree hugging. The council are proposing that these beautiful trees are removed from the town centre to make way for the new Sprint bus which promises to shave 7 minutes off the usual journey time to Birmingham (which will still be slower than the train). Residents have just under a fortnight left to raise objections. The council has printed the incorrect email address on both its website and the official notices, I'd like to think its an accident but the cynic in me says otherwise.

We live in one of the most deprived areas in the UK, trees are not only good for the environment but add some cheer to our increasingly derelict high street.

A rummage in the charity shops gleaned a vintage straw boater, a Betty Barclay Y2K fake Afghan coat and a 1980s alpaca and wool Italian-made jumper.

A rummage in the charity shops gleaned a vintage straw boater, a Betty Barclay fake Afghan style coat and a 1980s alpaca and wool Italian-made jumper.

I wore a vintage Afghan dress (bought from a vintage fair in 2017) with a chazza shopped Baker Boy cap and my Swedish Ten Points boots (photo below for 50 and Counting).

Jon dropped me off at True Beauty to get my nails done. Unusually for me I knew what I wanted before I got there, a teal blue, which will compliment the browns and rusts I'm currently embracing.  

Later we watched Silver Haze, a British film about a nurse who after a traumatic event 15 years previously is bent upon revenge until she falls in love with one of her patients.   

We had a lie-in on Saturday morning and read until 9am. Jon and I walked the long way round to the corner shop and treated ourselves to The Guardian which we read over posh coffees at the kitchen table.

The manager of one of the town centre chazzas thought of me when this Fashion Sketchbook was donated. People always seen to assume I'm good at art when nothing could be further from the truth but I had a go at sketching some of my recent outfits and was quite surprised with the results. It's rather addictive 

After the success of last year's school reunion, we decided to do it all over again.

I wore this vintage Hilary Floyd maxi a friend found for me in a Devon charity shop six years ago.

 

Like last year we shared our Queen Mary's High School for Girls gathering with the boys from Queen Mary's Grammar. We'd got too much to talk about to take many photos but thanks to Ian for snapping all of us together.

See you all in 2027!

It was my turn to make the tea on Sunday morning, which I brought back to bed and continued with my female-led Western, Nunslinger, which is proving to be a cracking read. 

After breakfast I sorted out next year's Glastonbury trader application and then got dressed and spent a couple of hours in the garden with Jon, sweeping up leaves and pruning bushes, dressed in a me-made maxi skirt, a chazza shopped tee-shirt and a secondhand Levi's Type 1 jacket .  

The rest of the day was spent reading and sketching and after tea we watched the final of the Great Celebrity Pottery Throwdown and the last episode of Pierre (fingers crossed Channel 4 commission a second series, we loved it!)

Today (Monday) kicked off with a 2km swim. There's a problem with the heat pumps so the water was a bit cooler but I barely noticed a difference after the first couple of lengths. The showers, on the other hand, were icy! 

We bumped into an old mate in Spoons, had a chat with him and then had a look around the charity shops before walking home. Jon got three 1980s 12" singles, including a white label, and I found a £3 teeshirt with an Eye of Time print which originally came from the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres (which I visited in the 1980s but, being a penniless student, could only afford a postcard from the museum gift shop). 

Although it's supposed to warm up later this week, it was chilly enough to need the jacket Nikki gave me to walk down to the pool, which I wore with this 1960s Indian cotton maxi dress a blogging pal sent me back in 2020.

The rest of the week is looking busy so I'm planning on a lazy afternoon of reading, once I've caught up with Blogland.

See you soon!

Art Star: Warhol in Wolverhampton

Another day, another cultural day out! Yesterday Liz and I visited Andy Warhol: Art Star at Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

One of the most influential American artists to emerge in the 20th Century, Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987) was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement, reimagining what art could be at a time of great social, political and technological change.

In conjunction with Tate and National Galleries Scotland, Art Star includes drawings, photographs and paintings from the 1950s to the 1980s, including iconic painted works featuring Andy Warhol's artists, friends, filmmakers and celebrities.

Wandering this incredible exhibition featuring work we've been familiar with for most of our lives, it occured to us that he died at just 58, a year younger than Liz and I's current age.

Apologies for the very image heavy post, I couldn't help myself! 

Blogger decided to upload my photos in the wrong order. These black and white screen prints were created in the 1980s and signalled a return to the politics of his earlier work. The hamburger is said to represent the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb, not at all wholesome or delicious.

"Always leave them wanting less" -Andy Warhol

“I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.”
― Andy Warhol

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art”― Andy Warhol

“An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.”
― Andy Warhol

"Beauty is a sign of intelligence"- Andy Warhol 

“Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.”― Andy Warhol

“I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumours to my dogs”― Andy Warhol

“If a person isn’t generally considered beautiful, they can still be a success if they have a few jokes in their pockets. And a lot of pockets”― Andy Warhol

“I think it would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor's finger.”
― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“But I always say, one's company, two's a crowd, and three's a party”― Andy Warhol

“You know it's ART, when the check clears”― Andy Warhol

"I wonder if it's possible to have a love affair that lasts forever" - Andy Warhol

“I just do art because I’m ugly and there’s nothing else for me to do”― Andy Warhol

“It’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are”― Andy Warhol

“I'm not afraid to die; I just don't want to be there when it happens”― Andy Warhol

"My idea of a good picture is one that's in focus and of a famous person"- Andy Warhol

“A picture means I know where I was every minute. That's why I take pictures. It's a visual diary.”
― Andy Warhol

“I wake up every morning. I open my eyes and think: here we go again.”
― Andy Warhol

“The best thing about a photograph is that it never changes. Even if the people in it do.”
― Andy Warhol

“Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television." ― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“I learned that you actually have more power when you shut up.”
― Andy Warhol, POPism: The Warhol Sixties

 

“I see art in everything. Your shoes. That car. This coffee cup. It's art if you see it as art.”
― Andy Warhol

“I like money on the wall. Say you were going to buy a $200,000 painting. I think you should take that money, tie it up, and hang it on the wall. Then when someone visited you the first thing they would see is the money on the wall.”― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest” ― Andy Warhol

“And your own life while it's happening to you never has any atmosphere until it's a memory”― Andy Warhol

“Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?”― Andy Warhol

“You’d be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall. Specially if the background color matches the drapes.”― Andy Warhol

“In the future, everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.”― Andy Warhol

“I am a deeply superficial person”― Andy Warhol

“People's fantasies are what give them problems. If you didn't have fantasies you wouldn't have problems because you'd just take whatever was there.”― Andy Warhol

“Why do people spend their time being sad when they could be happy?”― Andy Warhol

“I never think that people die. They just go to department stores.”― Andy Warhol

“The world fascinates me”― Andy Warhol

“I always run into strong women who are looking for weak men to dominate them”― Andy Warhol

“Beauty in danger becomes more beautiful”― Andy Warhol, Fame

“Security breeds stagnation”― Andy Warhol

“Most people in America think Art is a man's name”― Andy Warhol

“I never wanted to be a painter; I wanted to be a tap dancer”― Andy Warhol

“I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning”― Andy Warhol

"I think everybody should like everybody" - Andy Warhol

“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, "So what."
"My mother didn't love me." So what.
"My husband won't ball me. So what.
"I'm a success but I'm still alone." So what.
I don't know how I made it through all the years before I learned how to do that trick. It took a long time for me to learn it, but once you do, you never forget”― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“Everyone winds up kissing the wrong person goodnight”― Andy Warhol

“During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered” ― Andy Warhol

“Buying is much more American than thinking”― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“Just because people throw it out and don't have any use for it, doesn't mean it's garbage.”
― Andy Warhol

“The only time I ever want to be something is outside a party so I can get in.”
― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“I really do live for the future, because when I'm eating a box of candy, I can't wait to taste the last piece. I don't even taste any of the other pieces, I just want to finish and throw the box away and not have to have it on my mind any more. I would rather either have it now or know I'll never have it so I don't have to think about it”― Andy Warhol

“The idea is not to live forever, but create something that will”― Andy Warhol

If you want to learn more about Warhol's work I cannot recommend the BBC's stupendous documentary series The Art of America highly enough, it's one of the best art series I've ever seen and is still available on the i-player. 

Andy Warhol: Art Star runs until 4th October, 2026. The non-concessionary adult ticket price is £9 and, in my humble opinion, worth every penny!

Since we've been back from End of the Road, I've listed over 300 items on Vinted. 

Sales have been good and today's been the first day in over a fortnight when we've not had parcels to drop off. Earlier this week I decided to blitz my own wardrobe, putting away my festival clothes and the flimsiest of my dresses and selling things I'm not longer feeling the love for on my personal Vinted account. I've now got a whopping 21 empty coat hangers and a lot more space in my wardrobe, making choosing what to wear every day a little easier.

I've not touched up my roots all summer and, what with two Greek holidays, three festivals and five heatwaves, my hair has reverted back to its natural dirty blonde, a sight not seen since 2006! As a consequence the clothes I've worn for years look very different, like this 1960s Dollyrockers dress I bought from Second to None 17 years ago.

My All About Audrey maxi, purchased from one of their flash sales two years ago and a travel staple, also feels fresh and exciting. Monday was so warm I wore it to the pub and didn't even need the jacket I stuffed into my bag to walk back home after dark.

Enjoying a significantly uncluttered wardrobe I didn't intend to buy this dress, I just "liked" it when it popped up on Vinted as it's the alternative colourway to the one I bought from Anokhi in Mumbai back in 2020. It seemed rude not to buy it when the seller offered it me for a price I couldn't refuse. It got its first outing today, a day so mild that I walked to the swimming pool at 7am with bare arms!

Thanks as always for reading, have a fabulous weekend and see you soon!