Blanket cover

 It's been a long time since I wore TARDIS blue overtly.Voila, TARDIS blue in profusion!  I wasn't going to make the mistake I made last Sunday with church being freezing so I pulled out the big guns with this vintage blanket skirt. I wasn't cold. Result.

 And I find it hard to find things to wear these Irregular Choice, Poetic Licence shoes with so a minute bit of yellow was my cue!

 I really enjoyed church this morning.  We had a visitor from the cathedral who talked on going from being a disciple to an apostle.   I think one of my favourite books of the Bible is 2 Timothy which he read from.  It was the source of the first Christian song I wrote and even now, I read it and think of how encouraging its message it is.  Paul was encouraging a young Timothy in his walk with faith in Christ.  Encouragement is something really important to give each other.
Being an apostle is taking that step from following to sharing your message of faith.

It's so easy not to take the time to encourage, whether as a Christian or not.  You doubt your own self and abilities and it can be easy to forget to encourage other people in whatever.  Telling someone they are doing something well, that they can do it, telling them of the good things that have happened to you, and encouraging them in new paths. Telling someone you are praying for them, offering help and time.  A church friend has been a great source of encouragement for me this month in his family's selflessness in offering CBC and I a place to rent.

You here encourage me.  I think the encouragement that we as bloggers can give each other is very important.  Shamu, a regular commenter on this blog, has show through his poetry on his blog, that he has a constant struggle with acceptance and friendship in life (I hope you don't mind me saying that) and frequently shows gratitude for the encouragement he receives. Reciprocally, he is very, very good at encouraging people through comments, kindness and appreciation, even if his tights excitement is a little bit on the edge! :)  Lovely Laura, at Daisychain dream has struggled with eating disorders over the years, and I know as blog friends, the fact she trusts us to tell us of the struggles is an encouragement to us and we should encourage her in her journey.  Ally is finding her path presenting as a female and our encouragement of her in this is so important to building confidence. I've mentioned before, that Ally is a hugely important force of encouragement and good in the blogging world.  I could go on, but I suspect I will lose you. Every one I have come across in blogging needs encouragement. Encouragement to continue, encouragement for energy, for time and for struggles they have encountered. It is a privilege to be able to make a little contribution towards those struggles with a word here or there.

I've met a lovely new blogger this week, Ellie at This Country Girl's journal (I was her first commenter!) please go and say hi and comment on her blog to encourage her in her first month of blogging!

I hope all is well with you. Is there anything you need encouragement for? Or is there anything I can pray for? Just let me know!

xxx

Off to link up with lovely Patti who is the original encourager of beautiful bloggers everywhere with her link Visible Monday. I'm also glad it is Hat Attack with beautiful Judith because I am wearing my favourite Cloche that CBC gave me for Christmas 2 years ago!

Giveaway

Hi there!

I'm returning very late from a birthday party of WWKTTG, my illustrious brother-in-law.  It was really nice to see him AND Ms Penguin, sister-in-law and his friends all of whom I'd met before. It was a bit of a faff to get there, esp as CBC is away this weekend so I had to walk to the station in the dark, but it was really nice to go and celebrate with him and them!

Anyway, my 9th blogiversary giveaway, which I'm announcing only a mere 1 year and 9 months late (ahem), is now closed and I have picked a winner.

I know everyone uses Rafflecopter nowadays, but I like things a bit more low-tech round here.

So...I wrote everyone's names who said they'd like to enter onto little stars (arranged here very nicely into a heart formation)

 Then turned them over and swooshed them around a bit with my eyes shut so they were all nicely muddled.

and then picked a winner:

Julie!!!! (as in the Home Jules variety as opposed to other Julies who read my blog!) 

Please could you leave me your email address in the comments Julie and I will endeavour to send it to you in my best recycled box as soon as possible!!! ;-) 

Thank you to everyone else that entered.

My 11th blogiversary isn't far off- in a mere 2 months, so I will try to have a little give-away then.  I like little giveaways- there used to be many more in Blog-world, so it'll be nice to do another one.  

Hope you are all well, and now I am off to bed before I have to be at church in exactly 8 hours!!!

xxx

Steampunk millinery and other costumes

As I explained in my Tuesday night post, the day I visited the Langdon Museum of Power, it was for a special Steampunk extravaganza.  Sophie and I talked beforehand and thought we wouldn't try to go in costume because we werent sure exactly what steampunk fashion entailed and didn't want to have to go out and buy anything. It was therefore exciting to get there and feast our eyes upon the array of amazing outfits and compare the sartorial choices made by our fellow visitors.  Sophie took some amazing pictures here, mine are very much more grainy, inferior and poorly lined up/positioned, but I'll post them anyway!

The things I noticed about the steampunk were 

• Opulent materials: tweed, taffeta, 
• Bustles, feathers, ruffles, silks, hanging bits
• Hats- top hats, tricorns,some bowlers
• googles/binocular-type contraptions
• Cogs and wheels and cogs and other machinery embellishments
• Victorian and Edwardian-looking garments
• Dark colours
• Bodices and waistcoats
• Quirky accessories or weapons
• Frockcoats, capes and corsets
• Canes

It was all very dandy and elegant!

 Leather details and ribbons were in abundance.

 Feather, chiffon scarves and lavish embellisments

 This man had embellished his hat in a myriad ways- clock face, feathers, bincoulars, cogs, keys, ribbons.

 One of the events of the day was a reading of a novel by a Steampunk writer who read extracts of her book- loved her goggles and bustle

 One of my favourite hats was this musical collage- netting, musical notes and ribbons aplenty.

 I loved this fancy lace bustle

 The engine driver cap look featured highly too!

 Let's take a closer look at her vintage wine carrier.

 And there were several examples of piratical chic too!

I forgot to mention some of the fun events you could sign up to:  Umbrella jousting, biscuit dunking, altered art books and steampunk brooches. I managed to bag a place on the Steampunk brooch workshop but it was quite late and so CBC didn't want to stay so my place was given to one of the many of the waiting list.

As I dressed that walking (very late, we woke up late- I had wet hair which then turned fluffy), I'd thought I'd like to try and at least make a nod to the steampunk look. What did I go for in my wardrobe?

A mock tweed cropped blazer (Charityshopped), 

Black silk pussy bow blouse (Charity-shopped)

Cath Kidston clock skirt

 Which I noticed matched my Clocks handbag.

 Accessories-wise, I added this vintage mini-telescope necklace (it works) and wore some pocket-watch Disney Alice in Wonderland earrings.

Sophie took this picture of CBC and I when we went to Maldon later which shows it a bit better than my picture!/ 

I think it would be great fun to go the full hog steampunk-wise but I'm glad I had a look first!

What about you?  Have you heard of Steampunk? Have you dressed up in it? What would be your look?  Would you like to dress up?

xxx

The Starfish

The ongoing clearing out and consideration of items for moving continues.  I was clearing some things out of a drawer of paperwork and I found an information pack from a charity called Starfish Asia (giving hope to the children of Pakistan being their tagline.) and on the back of their pack, I saw this story:

The starfish

I was walking on the beach one day and I saw a young man picking up starfish from the sand and flinging them back into the sea.

I asked why he did it.

"If I don't, they will die in the midday sun," he said.

"But there are thousands of starfish," I replied.

"What difference does it make to save a few?"

He looked down at the starfish in his hand and flung it to safety in the waves.

"It makes a big difference to this one!" he said.

This is our philosophy.

We know we can't rescue everyone.

But we surely must rescue some

Together we can rescue many.

----

I love the message of that.  It is SO easy in life not to bother to do something little, or dare to do something big because it seems like it doesn't matter, it doesn't make a difference but it does.  One little action, one spoken word, one shared moment, one hand reaching out, one little gesture or time and it can make all the difference to one person, one time, one situation. Helping ONE child to get a good education could affect their whole life and that person might make a difference for any.

It's like Jesus talked about many drops making an ocean.  We have the potential on our own to be a drop in the vast ocean and may feel insignificant but it's comforting to know that together, we can be an ocean. And as we know, the ocean can be a tsunami and have immense power-that can be devastating power but it can also be good!

xxx

Pink alpacas

 It's very funny- it shouldn't work this way, but you know when you are a slightly quirky dresser OR you are a bit of a shopaholic, or you talk about clothes too much- people like to give you clothes.

I, by rights, should not be given any more clothes. I have far too many. Yet people associate you with things they get rid of. Like Vintage Vix gets people sending her things they see and they think of her and the chazzers save her the quirky stuff.
This jumper is a case in point.

 I've talked about my friend E in Petworth who I've stayed with. She's more than double my age and she's given me various vintage items she's got rid of over the last 10 years or so.
She brought this vintage alpaca jumper for me to music camp one weekend.  It's totally insanely bright and toasty as hell! It's almost 40 years old apparently and from Peru. I last wore it on the blog back in 2012, here when E gave it to me! I wore it in a bit of a mad cat lady way!

 On Sunday, I came home from church absolutely freezing and I wanted to wear something a bit warmer, so I changed into this. I was sort of inspired by an old blogging pal Lauren at Someonelikeyou here who teamed a reindeer  sweater with a black velvet mini-dress (except hers is skinny and svelte and stylish-looking!)- in my head, she wore it with a scarf (that's most of her other outfits around it) and so I thought I'd team my jumper with a mini-skirt and scarf- I wanted to wear these new fleecy leggings I'd bought as they are so cosy but I don't agree with leggings as trousers, so the skirt merely protected my modesty!  Underneath, I wore a long-sleeved green top that E had given me in about 2004!!! The skirt was a cast off from my Canadian work-colleague S who gave it to me when she moved home. Cosy socks were necessary as these were leggings and how appropriate these ones matched! Cosy or sad, pick your preferred option!
I truly was cosy and happy wearing this all Sunday. Yeh, it's not the most stylish thing ever, but maybe a little bit cute!?

 Last week, I dismantled our Christmas wreath in the garden, clipped all the foliage into the compost and laid all the artificial elements on the garden table...and forgot about them.

I noticed this poinsetta on the ground.  Picking it up and putting it into my mouth within the space of starting the 10 second timer and the click of the shutter, alla pseudo-romantic dancer, not my best move-urgh, it's been on the GROUND all week!!!

I realised that as I took the second photo!

I hope all is well with you and it all goeth well!


Outfit details:

Jumper-vintage Peruvian, gift from E
Scarf- gift from CBC
Skirt- F21 gift from S.
Boots- Clarks
Socks- gift
Hare Necklace-Wolf and Moon

Take care and stay warm and safe.

xxx

The Museum of Power

This post is a very long time in the putting together- I've been meaning to put it together it for ages.

Back in November, Sophie from Sophie in the Sticks let me know she was coming to Maldon in Essex for a Steampunk extravaganza at the Museum of Power which she'd been invited to and asked me if I wanted to come and meet her.  I was delighted at the opportunity to see Sophie again and I've been looking at those Brown tourism Museum of Power signs for years, wondering what it is.


When I arrived, from the outside, it looked a bit of a ramshackle place but inside, it was amazing, it is an absolutely fascinating museum, really my cup of tea- so different and so quirky!!!! It's not a sanitary, Science Museum or Natural History museum, it's a bit more basic and earthy but it's fab. It reminded me in some ways of the Jean Tinguelly museum in Basel in a strange way.

I thought I'd share how the website describes what it is for and what it is like

The Museum, a unique and fascinating experience for all the family, is located at Langford, near Maldon, Essex and is easily accessible from the A12 (see ‘Visiting’).
Set in seven acres of grounds with the River Blackwater running through, the main exhibits are housed in the 1920s Steam Pumping Station, the former generator hall and boiler house.
Pride of place is given to the magnificent Lilleshall triple-expansion steam engine which was returned to steam for the first time in 50 years in April 2011. As a result in September 2013 the museum was awarded “Engineering Heritage Listed Status” by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
The Museum includes numerous power-related exhibits that will interest young and the not so young, with many working examples of various power sources, machinery, equipment and tools.
In addition, in the former workshop, the Steam Pump Tearooms (opened in April 2011) offer an extensive selection of refreshments and treats for every age where visitors can relax.
Outside in the grounds more attractions can be found including a model village, picnic area and the ever-popular miniature railway providing rides for all ages at selective events.

There are so many cool exhibits!  I thought I'd share some pictures of some.

This yellow robot was really fun.

Because they run educational days, there were some great educational, interactive exhibits like this one which showed how a kettle boiled which I found fascinating!

There were some amazing pieces of machinery, pistons, gauges and motors galore.

This massive wheel is part of the huge steam pump- this was super impressive in motion.

We loved this collection of hoovers through the years- CBC joked that my hoover (now defunct) should go with them!

Ahrgh, why is this on its side!

We liked trying some different machines and tools!

In every corner, there was something to intrigue and to amuse.

Benign devices of power with friendly faces.

I loved seeing all the vintage fuel containers

Because there was a special Steampunk extravaganza, there were special exhibitors on the day, people who had brought their machines, steam or oil powered.

It was so different to any exhibition or museum I had been to and the fact you could get so close to things was really cool!

Outside, there were more interesting things to see.

There is a miniature railway there which you can ride on for a few pounds.

CBC, Sophie, her husband C and I decided to give the train a go and it was great fun

We had a super time at the Museum of Power and I recommend it for a visit. As I said, it's not the most spruced and shiny looking place but it is really interesting!

Have you been?

Stay tuned for a few pictures of the costumery people wore at the Steampunk event another time- it was fascinating!

xxx