TARDIS Tuesday - Cold War Take 4

There are certain cosplays that I revisit a lot!  Because I am still trying to get them right!
I last wore this cosplay last August here.  It is featured in a Submarine-based episode called Cold War. Clara and the Doctor are on their way to Hollywood but something goes wrong.

Let's look at what Clara wears!

IMage borrowed from Doctor Who role playing wikia

An ice-blue metallic corset-style dress with buttons down.  She's wearing a silver chain across-body handbag.  She's also donning a pair of silver glittery heels (from Red or Dead)

Later, she dons a Soviet Naval jacket as she's almost drowned.

Image borrowed from this Pinterest but belongs to the BBC

And here's me!

I'm wearing the same Vivienne Westwood dress I wore last time I posted this outfit and the same screen-accurate silver shoes.

What changed?  Well, I found this lovely cotton nautical jacket on eBay for £5 (inc postage) last Summer and decided to take a punt on it.  The other item was the cute silver glitter handbag which was another eBay purchase which was £3- I actually wanted a neutral shoulder-strap handbag for a wedding and I decided it would be good to get one like Clara's.

The items in this outfit are all very much DRESS UP items- they are slightly quirky or unconventional but I would still wear them just maybe not together out in one go!  What do you think?

xx

Style Imitating Art: Gaughin's "The Siesta"

This week's Style Imitating Art outfit is a first for the group as it is our first Gaughin! It has been chosen by the newest of our curators, Kim at Fierce Fashion blog.

She chose it for its summery vibes! Sometimes I struggle to interpret an SIA piece but this time, it was easy!!!

The most obvious ways of interpreting it could be:

• floral blouse
• Black and white patterned skirt
• Pink blouse
• Hat with polka dot band.
• Mauve top.
• Orange tunic or dress.

Less obvious might be:

• A medley of greens.
• Sandy strips (for the floor boards)

Paul Gauguin’s “The Siesta“:

And here's what I went with!

Decided to be the lady with her back to the artist.

I wore my charity-shopped vintage black and white patterned skirt. On my top half, I wore this white blouse with rainbow floral embroidery and big bell sleeves. I borrowed CBC's hat and added my black polka wired hair scarf.

I'm very excited to see how everyone else interprets this one on Kim's blog! Head over there on Wednesday to find out!

TARDIS Thursday outfit - Romana II in Shada

I had a bit of a 'I'm NOOOOOT ready!" for TARDIS Tuesday this week so I am opting for TARDIS Thursday instead.
Today, I thought I'd share a cosplay I have longed to do for a long time but somehow not really attempted, mainly due to the top half.

A famous episode in Who mythology is Shada which was a Tom Baker's 4th Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana II adventure. It was set in Cambridge and was all set to be an exciting adventure! BUT...there were script writer strikes and so....it was never finished!

I'm going to be looking at Romana's outfit in it.  She's a Time Lady also and this is her 2nd incarnation.

In it, she was dressed in a beautiful quirky Edwardian-looking, gorgeously feminine outfit!  I loved Romana's outfits.  It's mainly white with red accents!

Let's all take joy in various photos of it!

Image borrowed from
https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/romana-ii-shada/ 

The full outfit above!

Below, Romana is in a boat being punted along by the Doctor, enjoying a lazy read.

Image borrowed from this Pinterest

Below, looking cute and wistful

IMage borrowed from this Pinterest

And here's me!

 Let me talk you through the outfit!
The reason I chose to attempt this outfit now, was the fact that on Tuesday, when I met my friend to have a look at the charity shops, the Hamelin trust was having a £2 sale on all clothing.  There was a pretty Topshop white dress which, to my eyes, really resembled Romana's blouse.  It'd be an easy job to tuck it in.  I took a punt on it (ho ho) since I could always donate it back!

When I got home, I located my Per Una cream floral ruffled maxi skirt which was a birthday present from my Dad and Stepmum at least 8 years ago, possibly more.  Next, I located my red bow belt from Poundland and my red charity shopped Clarks desert boots and some old red Primark long socks.

The red choker is a piece of ribbon from the tag my Mum attached to my birthday present.

When it came to the hat, I remembered a gorgeous miniature boater I bought from ASOS back in 20010- it was the perfect size, last worn on the blog in 2011! Luckily, it was just up on my hat shelf in the wardrobe and not in the loft.  I added the fake cherry brooch that CBC bought me for a present back in 2010 and 2 white flower hairgrips that live in my brooch box.

Our new swings-seat seemed the perfect place to try and recreate Romana's boat pictures.

I must admit that the Edwardian era is one I have always loved in the style-sense and I rather like this! I am all the more pleased that I had it all in my wardrobe except for that £2 dress!

On Instagram, I was told I also resemble Mary Poppins and yes, I see it!!!

What do you think?

x

Eco-things this week (Plastic Free July)

I have been continuing to try hard with Plastic Free July but as Bev stated in the comments on my last post- it is hard not to resent the supermarkets for making it so hard for us to be plastic-free. We have to be super-prepared, organised and willing to go out of our way to avoid plastic and it is not everyone that will do that. 

Here are some eco-things I tried to do this past week.

1.  I always buy my children who have performed in the school Summer music concert an ice-poll to each to say thank you.  But this year, all I could think of was the 92 individual pouches of throwaaway plastic that would produce.  So I checked the packaging of all Iceland's ice-cream products and chose the more expensive option of choc-ices to avoid plastic as they come in paper.  I made sure to explain to them that I had chosen these because they weren't in plastic!  These seemed to really like them which was a bonus!

2. At the end of year drinks and presentations at work- I got everyone to give their (grrr) plastic cups to me and then I proceeded to wash up all of them in a sink of hot soapy water and dried them up and put them back into their packaging to be reused next time we need plastic cups. So no plastic made it into either the bin or recycling!  (I also washed up all the Schloer and Prosecco bottles! Please note I didn't take one: I bought a mug from the staffroom (there aren't enough for everyone sadly)).

3.  AHRGH, having a PARTY!!!! CBC bought LOADS of things in plastic! I felt like ALL my good was being undone!!! Have been trying to make sure that anything left is used.

4. I have organised my scrap paper box at school so I have all the A4 paper flat and face down, A5 pieces in a zippy bag, A3 paper in a zippy bag.  I've organised all my music resource sheets back into the cupboard so I can reuse them.  The kids sometimes say, "Miss, my sheet has a tear in the corner." I reply, "Can you read it?" and when they say, "Yes," I just say, "I am trying to save trees." and then they are happy.  And with the scrap paper, I fully intend to only print my music work onto scrap paper so I can avoid virgin paper. The exceptions being letters home to parents. I went down various people's 'binning' bags' and took paper out to add to my stash.  The stash is now ready to reuse for next year/  Let's see if I can avoid ALL new paper.

5.  One or two mugs broke at work so rather than put them in the bin, I brought them home and smashed them further and used them as crocks to put in the bottom of my pot I bought for the blueberry plant I bought.  Waste not, want not!

5.  The parent of the music scholarship came in today to sign the forms. He told me, "She talks about you a lot. She says that you will always carry your plastic bottle home to recycle, even if it is a pain.  She now watches me like a watch and if I try to put something in the bin that should be recycled, she tells me off and makes me remove it."  This makes me very happy. She did say to me last week after she asked me why I'd bought Choc-ices instead of ice-pops for them (and I explained that they were in paper and now I could't justify throwing 90 plastic wrappers away,especially because of plastic-free July), "You are the only person I know who really cares like this about the environment."  I said to her, "I know in my heart that I have to do the right thing and even if it is difficult, even if people think it is weird- I know I am doing the right thing and that's what makes me do it, even if no one else is."  She  nodded and I knew, in yet another way, she is a kindred spirit! If I can inspire ONE person to try and make a difference, then it is worth it!

6.  Went to Lush today to buy a shampoo and conditioner bar to try as I had not been so happy with refill shampoo.  Funny thing is, I realise that my hair seems to have got used to the shampoo now so it hasn't felt horrible! Still, I wanted to try the Lush range. I also bought their body moisturiser and my old favourite Imperialis face cream as I know you can return their black pots to them.

7.  Mummy made me a scourer out of hemp string!!!

8.  I may have mentioned cutting up a load of CBC's old socks (and mine) which I gave to the year 2 teacher to use for her class making felt fish.  I've already given the new year 2 teacher a bit bag of socks and sock pieces for next year and told her that this is a lovely cheap, eco-friendly way to do this. It wasn't my idea originally- it was our deputy head's idea when she was a year 2 teacher.  I saved the elasticated bands and been using these as hair-bands- they are super strong and stretchy! I've also lent her my Grandad's violin for her daughter as she needs a full-sized violin but they can't quite afford the one they need/want to get so this will give them time to save up the money!

What eco-things have you seen or done this week?

xx

Boats and moats

This is me at Layer Marney Tower, a Tudor home near Colchester in Essex.  We headed there for a musical event a few weeks ago

I wore this wonderful boat skirt which was sent to me by the wonderful Ann, AKA Polyester Princess who sent it to me as a gift to accompany the Doctor Who item she was sending for me in the post! It fits m absolutely perfectly which is a rare and beautiful thing for me with clothing for my bottom half! How jolly it was to wear with all my red and a boat and wave necklace!

I've had a lovely musical weekend. CBC and I played with a string quartet for a wedding yesterday which went quite well.  Today, I was playing Gamelan at the residence of the Indonesian Ambassador which was great fun and a joy to do!  Plus, lots of yummy food and great company!

Here some pictures from Layer Marney

View from the top of the tower.

The great hall- a great performance space.

 The tower from below.

 The stairs to the tower- notice they are the wrong way from usual for castle spiral staircases!

The top of the tower.

Hope you have had a great weekend!

x

The end of the year.

And just like that, another academic year is over for me.

Though school has finished, I will be back in school on Monday as I've left my music room in rather a state.  I put signs up on the door saying,
"DANGER. Room in a state of Extreme mess.  Enter with caution."  Of course, everyone who saw it then wanted a look and were indeed shocked at the mess within!  I do have an extraordinary amount of paper since I try to save and reuse sheets each year to save on wasting paper and I save all the children's paper work for the whole year and inevitably the last half term leads to a big backlog where I've got busy and there's a big heap! 
It was sad to say goodbye to some pupils- my excellent woodwind players have all left- I've had them for such a long time, it's going to be very strange without them. So many lovely children and particularly musicians amongst them.  There are a few children too, I might add, whose tricky behaviour, I perhaps won't miss as much.
I received an astonishing amount of presents- in some ways, I wish they would just send a card in that 22 boxes of chocolates (encased in plastic) and several Best Teacher Mugs are too much for one person though I appreciate the gesture.  Some of the messages I received in cards were just lovely and the kind thanks I received from parents was delightful too.
I've had some great moments this year as well as some difficult- the success of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, the Christmas performances, a child receiving the Mayor of London's music scholarship, meeting some of my old pupils who left 3 years ago who recently came to chat to me at the Summer fair and told me that, "You do realise we have all taken GCSE music.", the proud moment where my best flautist played a piece that an A'level student played at CBC's school, the moment where most of year 6 ran up to my Recorder rehearsal when they heard my arrangement of Baby Shark and many more, every moment where a pupil has told me, "I really enjoyed that lesson.", the parent of one of our most difficult children told me that I'm his favourite teacher, the moment I heard today that year 4 class were really gutted that they weren't doing music and would rather spend their last lesson of the year with me than watch a video, my work colleague who was leaving today who in her speech began by saying how much she admired me and thank you for giving her the chance to do something she never thought she'd do- perform at the Royal Albert Hall!  And of course the fact that Fridays have been a wonderful pleasure all year as I have had the delightful year 5 and the loveliest year 4 class then this last term, a delightful year 2 music club.  These are all things that I treasure in my heart and make the rather more difficult moments tolerable.
It's been a great year in many ways and I am glad to have been a part of it.
xx

Plastic Free July so far.

I signed up to Plastic Free July.  Where you make a bid to reduce your plastic usage consciously in July. You can just try to make one small change or you can make an extra effort to avoid it all together. As I am already doing the first type- it was an ALL, if I can, effort!
1.  Shopping on first Monday:  Ginger, Lime, Avocado, potatoes, Sour dough bread, tins of soup, chickpeas, brie in some sort of paper...

2. Summer fair at school.  Made sure I recycled all the items that were left in my area.   Washed up 10 plastic cups and saved them for the school gardener to recycle for herbs for the children to take home.  Also disposed of cans.

3.  Took home our restaurant leftovers in my own plastic box for two meals on the first Friday and Sunday.  Both of them proved invaluable.  We used the Babaganoush for a picnic on Sunday when we needed some food but didn't want to buy things in plastic. We managed to avoid all purchase of plastic for the picnic except for a block of cheese. Everything else was naked or in paper or glass. It WAS annoying how expensive the non-plastic clad items were in comparison! That's why I like to go to the international grocers near school or in the big town back home.  Things are reasonably priced- not extortionate.

4.  Two performances of musical at school, I made sure to be the person who put bins out by the refreshment table in the interval.  I then swiped the bin bags out of these and washed out all the cans and bottles in there and took them home on the train!  I know this isn't plastic free but making an effort for other people to save their plasti from the bin is a good action.

5.  When I got chips on the way home from my late rehearsal (it's been one of those weeks), the young assistant went to pick up a polystyrene tray to put them in (WHY???? I used to work in a chip shop- not necessary!) and I stopped her and asked her to just put them on the paper.  I also took no bag and only one layer of paper which I then ripped up to put in the compost so this was pleasing.

6.  Sunday shop, headed on the train to next town to go to the greengrocers (there is no greengrocer or supermarket in my home town that doesn't have plastic grr).  Managed to bring all my own bags to put the stuff in and only bought loose items:  Pak Choi, 4 red bell peppers, 12 satsumas, 5 nectarines, 6 Pink Lady Apples, 3 limes and 3 lemons, massive punnet of cherry tomatoes (my own punnet), 3 avocados £9:05 for all the veg .  I also bought 2 Vegan sausage rolls from Greggs (in my own box) £2 and a jar of Organic jackfruit (plus metal lid), olive pate (in a glass jar with a metal lid), jar of local honey (with metal lid), 3 paper bags of sweeties, fudge, chocolate buttons from Ye Olde Sweetshop.

Where I have failed:
I've eaten a few bags of crisps and choccie snacks bought by other people  which come in plastic (CBC, Teachers whose birthdays it was, bags of crisps left on table at work for long evenings).
However, I have somehow reduced my crisp intake basically because I want to avoid plastic. I don't want to buy them because of the plastic so this is progress. If I get desperate, I will order some crisps from Two Farmers.

Update:  CBC was cooking a Butternut squash for a party he is going to tomorrow so I nabbed the discarded seeds which I washed and baked with melted butter,salt and Paprika as a tasty, salty snack.

However, CBC ended up buying veg and items in plastic for a faculty bring and share party he is going to and for drinks and food he is doing for colleagues at ours on Wednesday.  Annoyingly, if I had known what he wanted, I could have got him the majority of veg plastic free from the Green Grocers on Sunday.  Did manage to get a few things outside of plastic:  potatoes, Pepper, Spring onions, Aubergines...

I came home late from a rehearsal and CBC had failed to cook anything.  He said we should get some Chinese so I told him he had to come with plastic containers and a carrier bag to put them in.  He arrrived to fetch me from the station and somehow had lost the containers or forgotten to pick them up. So we had 2 plastic containers!!!!!! Which is very annoying.

Links:

Tell the Beer Giants to get rid of those stupid plastic rings!

Susie shared this- that Morrisons are introducing completely plastic free fruit and veg sections! Hurrah!

Head over to Bev at Confuzzledom who is also trying to do Plastic Free July!


Have you pledged for Plastic Free July?  It is not too late- you could start now!

x

What is it? #66 Clouds at Sunset

Hello! Tis I, Le Klez!
We have another round of What is it on the way.  The sky was glorious on Friday the 5th July and I went outside to take some pictures of it.
Yet, as I looked at these pictures later, I found myself noticing that there wasn't just an image of a cloud that I could see in the image below.
What else did I see in it?  What else can you see in it?
Do leave an answer below in the comments box as to any image you see in the cloudscape below. I love hearing your ideas.

What about last time? I shared this image of my Mum's coat and hat that were sitting at the end of my bed the night I stayed at Mum's house. It was pretty disconcerting to be honest because I could see the most dreadfully sinister looking face with a large hooked nose, sunken eyes and a large mouth.  The man was wearing a beret upon his head and I definitely couldn't go to sleep with that at the end of my bed.  I showed Mum the image and she went and rearranged the coat.




What did my illustrious, kind commenters see?

8 comments:

1. 
   Julia12:11 am

   I see a grouchy face with a prominent forehead, deep set eyes, big pointy nose with large nostrils and a really grouchy mouth. How could you sleep in that room with such a menacing person in there, hahaha.
   Have a good sleep tonight.
   Hugs, Julia

   ReplyDelete
2. 
   Angela7:19 am

   Yes I agree with Julia. A French man in a beret with a determined expression

   ReplyDelete
3. 
   Ivana Split2:36 pm

   I definitely see a face there, almost a caricature of a face actually, I would say that it resembles either a face of a witch or a grumpy old man (maybe a magician?). At any rate the face looks a bit sinister. I think I would see the face even if the beret wasn't placed on the top of the coat, I can definitely see the prominent nose and mouth. Funny how the coat ended up looking so much like a face, isn't it? On the other hand, it is in our human nature to look for faces everywhere, apparently that's how our brains are programmed. Still, that coat does look like a face.
   
   When it comes to tiny mouse, I don't really see it, although I get how it could look that way but to me it looks like a bud.

   ReplyDelete
4. 
   Confuzzled Bev3:32 pm

   It's a witch! I see her pointy nose.

   ReplyDelete
5. 
   everydayjoyandme4:30 pm

   Definitely a grouchy old man in thes style of those flip images *you know the one where one way it's an old lady the other it's a young woman).

   ReplyDelete
6. 
   Pink Haired Princess11:02 am

   An old face (facing right) with a pointy nose. Gosh, once you see it, it's such a strong image.

   ReplyDelete
7. 
   HazelxJoy2:35 pm

   It's a grumpy old man, with a pointy nose, wearing a beret.
   xx

   ReplyDelete

Yep, you all saw it too! How bizarre that the folds of the coat could have so perfectly created such an aberation!


I look forward to seeing what you saw in the clouds.

xx

Chive Flower vinegar

My original eco-hero blogger is the wonderful Secondhand Susie.  She inspired me to start doing eco posts as she has always shared some brilliant links.  She's also an inspiration in terms of her Surburban garden and growing your own.  

And then she shared a brilliant idea!

She said you could flavour and colour White Wine Vinegar with chive flowers.  It makes the most pretty pink/red vinegarette

Since I knew I needed to remove the flowers from my chives as they take the goodness away from the chives themselves, I was delighted to have a reason to use them!  

I went to the Refill Room and bought some White wine vinegar in one of my juice bottles from the Milkman and then I chopped all the flowers off the chives in our herb bed.  It was then a case of snipping the petals into an empty, clean jar and then filling the jar with the white wine vinegar (all the above were reused).  You then leave them in a dark place for two weeks and then you need to try and sift out the flowers.  Your vinegar should be very tasty and a beautiful colour!

These photos were taken a while ago and the vinegar was even redder than above!  It also tasted very nice on chips and salad.  The two smaller jars were made for my Mum and Dad for their birthdays respectively.

If you have any chive flowers to use, I recommend this as a nice way to use the chive flowers.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Clara Oswad in The Ultimate Guide

Today's TARDIS Tuesday is a bit of an obscure one! 
During the 50th Anniversary celebrations, a documentary was made and shown called The Ultimate Guide (to Doctor Who). 
At the start, Clara joins the Doctor in the TARDIS ready to go on holiday but something goes wrong and the Doctor has accidentally wiped all 1300 years of his memory!

Clara wears a shimmery oil-slick effect dress from Yumi along with some sunglasses and a straw hat plus much luggage!!

Image borowed from this Pinterest

And here's my version of the outfit.  Happily, I managed to find the real version of the dress. I've wanted this dress for such a long time. I saw a couple of cosplayers selling them for 80Euros, 50 Euros, £50, £70 but I couldn't justify paying that for a dress.  This one was a lucky find on eBay for £9.99 that no one else spotted, amazingly enough.  The material is so sparkly, rainbowy and shimmery in real life- it doesn't come across so well in pictures!

I wore one of my many straw hats and some sunglasses I bought in Greece and added all the luggage that I could find!!

s

Image borrowed from Cool Spotters

This dress was a lovely one to wear for our school performance yesterday!

I found the episode on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V91tFMmY5oE so I guess I'll be watching The Ultimate Guide soon!

What do you think?

xx

The Courgetelephone is ringing!

Yes, I know, that is a terrible, terrible blog title, but never mind!

I wanted to share my excitement that FINALLY, I have grown a successful courgette!  This one was the first and it was very tasty!  There are at least another 5-6 on the way and I am gleefully surveying them every day, waiting till I think they are big enough to cut and eat. My Mum is inclined to pick them when tiny but I'd like them a bit bigger...like this one!

It seems, every year, I have one particularly successful edible plant. Last year was tomatoes, perhaps this is the Year of the Courgette?  

That said though, we've had 100 strawberries I reckon which is super exciting. It's particularly nice knowing they have not come in plastic!!! 

But I'm hoping the courgette luck continues to last. I am grateful to my Mum for providing me with these successful plants so far!!! 

Ah... the joy of growing our own will never leave me!!!

x

Style Imitating Art- Children at the Beach

It's time for another Style imitating Art outfit. Salazar chose this beautiful watercolour, Children at the beach.

The painting is by Post-Impressionist Maurice Prendergast, “Children at the Beach.

I knew that would begin with my Cath Kidston cloud skirt as this would suit the colours nicely and the literal fact that there are clouds in the sky - well, sort of!


Next, I added my blue charity shopped Karen Millen shirt as it was another jolly shade of blue.  My cotton cardigan is from DKNY and I've had it since I was a teen aged 16 and my Nan was still alive.  My sister gave it to me as a present so it's doing well 21 years on! My second-hand Saltwater sandals seemed perfect for the hot day and since we had a sea scene, I added me Kirsten Stewart fish necklace from the Orkneys. And of course, a silly paddling pose!

What do you think?

Go and see how everyone else interpreted it!

xx

Finding the Magic Flute

When I was 16, I was asked to play for my very first paid gig. It was a week's run of Mozart's famous comic opera, The Magic Flute in my local theatre.  I was to play my viola alongside another older viola player for a week.  I received £45 per performance and rehearsal which, for a 16-year old, was amazing- especially as there were 6 in total!

It wasn't my first time playing in the orchestra pit at my local theatre as I had played viola for a production of Benjamin Britten's Let's Make an Opera!/The Little Sweep.   I think this was Edna Graham, my sister's singing teacher, who was the MD for the operas at the theatre's way of testing me out to see if I would be up to the challenge of playing in her opera orchestra.  She was very good at supporting young musicians.  Anyway, I must have done a good job, as there I was a year later, playing for a paid run of a show.  I remember the excitement AND fear as I sat there at my very first rehearsal with all the proper adult musicians. It was unbelievably exciting, particularly as I was the only non-adult there and I felt I was the first of my contemporaries to be offered such an opportunity.

Every night was exciting. Annie-Marie, who was the other viola player was so kind and supportive of me- she even donned my tiara for The Queen of the Night aria one night!  (Funnily enough, I met her at an orchestra rehearsal I deputized for someone at in Walthamstow back in December and she recognized me- it was so delightful to see her after about 20 years!) I will never forget that wonderful experience. I loved the wittiness of Mozart's opera- Papageno in his silly bird costume, the Queen of the night, the beautiful arias. And then there were all the beautiful flute solos. I used to turn round to look at Claire, the girl who played all the gorgeous flute solos- the two big famous ones and then all the other myriad other sumptuously flautistic offerings.  Though I liked playing my viola, my heart has always belonged to my flute.  It was the instrument I always wanted to play and loved most.  One day, I wished, one day, I too would play those wonderful flute solos.  

Because I had an ear that could recognise the pitch of music and copy it, I remember getting my flute out and playing those solos from ear.

But 22 years on, somehow, I had never had the opportunity to play that flute part.  Cue an email from my musical camping course and I saw that The Magic Flute was being planned for a weekend in June.  I decided to send enquiring email to the organiser asking if she already had a first flute for it and offering my services if she hadn't!  To my delight, she sent back a positive reply saying she would be really happy for me to come and play first flute.   My heart soared with utter delight at the prospect of finally realising my adolescent dream to play those flute solos which I held in such high esteem.

The months went on and then I received an email from the conductor (who conducts my regular orchestra), asking me to learn the two big solos from memory as he wanted me to be on stage with the character, Tamino, who plays the flute.  This made the whole prospect even more exciting!  

Somehow, life got busy and learning the solos didn't really happen but somehow, having listened to and tried playing those solos as a teen stayed in my subconscious as I found it really easy and quick to learn the solos.

Last weekend FINALLY came and I travelled to my beloved camp to play.  It was a glorious weekend playing those solos and all the other beautiful moments.  I felt such overwhelming gratitude to have the opportunity to play this part.  Not every flautist gets this opportunity.  It was a scorching weekend and extremely tiring but I relished every moment.  When it came the performance, I didn't experience any of my usual nerves, I felt calm and relaxed and all the solos went well.  The audience clapped for us long and hard. I was given the first stand up and to my delight, some people stood up in the audience for me!  It was a privilege to perform with such a talented set of people and I wanted to immortalize this halcyon day on which I finally achieved this dream!

In case you are interested, here are the two famous solos where Tamino plays the magic flute to help him. 

Listen from 1:50 in the above one.

In the one below, listen from the start.

And in case you don't know the story, here's a short synopsis.

If you ever want to see an opera, I recommend the Magic Flute- it is very approachable and fun and the tunes will get stuck in your head, in a very good way!

Do you know The Magic Flute? Have you ever achieved a childhood ambition like this?

xx

TARDIS Tuesday - Sleep No More original outfit Summer twist!

Hi!

It's been one of those weeks where I haven't been bothered  had time to put together a TARDIS Tuesday outfit that's had much thought.  But, last week, I happened to be going through my Clara boxes (yes, those are a thing) and I decided to take out my original Sleep No More garments out of the box and put them into regular clothing drawers since I have my lovely top  and skirt which Ang customised for me, worn here.

But, I thought that for Tuesday, I would like to wear them together for a Summery look.  So, I did!

Image borrowed from this Pinterest but comes from a Radio Times shoot!

You can see the basic similarities but instead, I added my leggings (because we all know this skirt is too short for tights only!)  and wore my Caretaker Clara shoes with the outfit.  I received lots of compliments at school about this outfit, particularly the scallops!

And that's all folks for today!!!
What do you think of my Summery Spin on the original outfit!?

x