Gatsby Lady

 Here we go again when it's a new week and I STILL haven't caught up on blogs and blogging. I am just so resistant to getting on the computer at the moment which is a shame as I have lots I could talk about.

First up, I had to share my lovely new dress!!

Vix posted that she had bought this dress as stock for her vintage shop, Kinky Melon, and I loved it!  I remembered she had admired a 70's stripy frock of mine and cheekily, half-jokingly suggested a swap!  Happily, she agreed and we sent them to each other.  I am very happy to say I love mine and it fits well! I love a 20's look and it has both a 20's flapper AND a Grecian look to it, two of my favourite styles of dress!

I wore it on Friday for CBC's work colleague party.  I survived it and we didn't kill each other during the prep (though it was a close thing), nor did I find it as daunting as I felt it would be talking to his colleagues, especially the young, lairy, extrovert flirtatious one that I feel awkward around. Lots of admiration from the guests. Worn here with my Clarks Somerset T-bar shoes (recently charity-shopped) and my Jenny Packham headdress worn for my wedding.

Vix very kindly included some extra bits in my parcel and sent me these two marvellous big straw hats which I adore and a cute retro Cherry brooch.  Such a nice thing to do!

It's been a fairly quiet weekend.  After the big clean up operation on Friday night, we were quite knackered so of course I woke up before 7am on Saturday morning.

We  had a fairly lazy day except that I got a bit bored of being inside so I walked into town to fetch a prescription, have a quick look in the charity shop and then go for a walk round the horse fields

Ended up buying one or two bits in the charity shop- a little tiny vase with a thin neck, the sort that holds one bloom but I wanted it to try regrowing basil plants from the supermarket basil plant that CBC bought for the party.  I have heard that you can put a Basil stalk in water that has no leaves on it and it will grow new leaves and roots so I am giving it a try.  There's also a Strawberry Mint cutting in the vase AND a Lime Mint one too as I want to grow some new herbs for the planters in the quandrangle at school as our lovely gardening lady, B, my friend, has sort of given it up, esp as her husband has been ill.  I've been doing a little bit of work in there and have planted Nasturtiums in the hanging baskets (which are now growing!) and volunteer tomato plants too.  On the same subject, I actually bet B last Tuesday evening for an ice-cream Sundae at the Harvester near school so she could give me some Spinach plants. It was a really nice thing to do and I was happy to see her.

Also in the charity shop, bought a fake leather jacket for £3 and 2 Dodie Smith books I've not read before as well as a Ted Baker shirt for CBC which he doesn't like.

We've been eating up excess food  and drink from the party all weekend which has been quite nice thought I'm a bit fed up of Pimms! CBC always overcaters.

This morning, I got up at 7.45am (ouch!) to catch the (even earlier than last week!) train to church in the town where CBC and I first lived when we got married. It was SO nice to go to church there two weeks running as I was asked if I would come and play flute for the two weeks as Ian, a lovely man, decided to fill in the gaps when the regular band weren't available and wanted to have more instrumentalists.  It has been SO nice playing my flute for the worship at church- it really was so nice to play and do that as it is such an important part of church for me and was so nice to see my friends AND just to play my flute! 

When I got back, CBC had only just gone out cycling (he'd had an epic lie-in. I did try waking him up) so he got back fairly late. I've done some gardening, picking out the side shoots and suckers from my tomato plants, taking out an overgrown spinach plant and replacing it with the new plants from B and picking fruit. I picked 87 strawberries yesterday and already picked a load earlier in the week and there's lots more that are ready. I also picked some rhubarb, spinach, masses of Rocket, scapes from my Welsh onions.   I can see embryo cucumbers on my plants and even some tomatoes. The cucumbers take so long though.

Black fly on the Green Bean plants. I have been spraying them with washing up liquid water and was gleeful when I found a ladybird in the garden today- went and put it over on the blackfly but it wasn't there later....hope it has started munching! 

My first Dahlias, planted from Tubers from Wilko, have flowered and look really lovely and my Cosmos Sensation are developing lots of foliage- hopefully flowers soon!

I've been watching Sweet Tooth on Netflix after Ally's recommendation as well as rewatching The Good Place.

Hope all is well with you!

xx