Gingham dreams

Nothing like a swirly Dorothy-Style (albeit monochrome) dress for making you feel like spinning! Smoke gets in your eyes? Hair, more like it!

As mentioned, CBC doesn't feel like going Swing-dancing at the moment, so my swing dancing dresses are feeling neglected, so I attempted to be creative with otherwise summery clothes by wintering this one up with sweater and tights and of course, my lovely vintage Jaeger coat, which I glimpsed in Oxfam in a traffic jam in Oxfordshire last February and managed to persuade my friend to purchase for me! It felt like vintage coat day. I got the idea of adding a black sweater from Lauren at Someone like you aaaages ago when she teemed a halterneck polka dot dress with a black turtle neck top.

Speaking of the swing dance- I had a lovely time going up to London last Tuesday and learnt/relearnt another lindy charleston variation which was great fun! PLlus, since I had completed the Beginners' 10 week cycle and the Intermediate 10 week cycle, that instead of doing the Beginners again, I would go to the Charleston workshop with Nikki in the cafe downstairs. It was so fun learning a partnered Charleston routine apart from the scary fact that I got there late, 20 mins to be precise and I had to dance with Nikki as no other partners!!! Eeek.

Speaking of other things mentioned on her, we had a lovely time with J, my mother-in-law staying. It was so nice to see her and spend a bit of time with her. We enjoyed CBC's first Christmas concert at his school and had a lovely meal out. She bought us some lights for our (Landlord's)Christmas tree

We also did some Christmas shopping at Westfield on Saturday after helping an injured relative to the hospital. They have these really cool 'hire wheeled chairs' which were by the entrance of the Royal London, linked together like trollies in a supermarket which you must insert a £1 in order to borrow. Good thing we got one to wheel him in as we seemed to walk miles and miles of corridors in order to find where A&E was and that would have been painfully slow!! Westfield was heaving as was to be expected. I don't really like a closed in mall, especially a big one, I've decided- I much prefer a High Street! Still, it was fine and we got some presents for people.

Tonight, I went round to a friend's house for the evening for dinner. It was really lovely to spend time together and we decided we must do it more! She cooked a lovely Gnocchi, butternut squash, tomato and goats cheese bake which I devoured in large quantities. She's a self-confessed 'non-cook' so she was rather pleased at my 'wolfing down' reaction and said she'd try cooking more. I don't know why she isn't confident, I loved what she served up! She came to the carols last night and I'll see her at the Church christmas meal tomorrow. Amazing the way things come in threes! I was also really happy as my old next door neighbour came to the carol service as well and I've been asking her for 3 years now and she finally made it!

This is the week of my carol service at school. Am excited as usual but always a little nervous that all will not go according to plan. They say never work with animals or children right? I hope the world premiere of Innkeepers' rant goes well! Once it's over, I must actually write the music notation for it instead of winging it each and every time I play it.

Linking up to Visible Monday with the beautiful and florally attired Patti at Visible Monday

Linking up with the super Claire Justine too at Creative Mondays