TARDIS Tuesday- The Crimson Horror- Clara's return outfit from Victorian England

Hi there,

Hope you are well. I am sitting here watching The Gilmore girls on Netflix. It's such a lovely show. It's cheering me up, calming me down after a day which was ok but I got annoyed at the end of. I did start writing about it here but I deleted.

https://claraoswaldcosplay.dreamconnect.de/?p=435

Here's my latest TARDIS Tuesday inspiration. It was worn by my favourite, Clara Oswald in an episode called The Crimson Horror.  It was set in the Victorian era and for most of the episode, Clara wore a big historical dress.  However, at the end, she is back home and dons this outfit.

It features a blue floral strappy playsuit from Urban Outfitters. She wears it with a back short-sleeved top and a claret speckled draped cardigan from Urban outfitters and black tights. In terms of accessories, she wears an Aztec eagle necklace and a brown belt.  We are not sure of footwear but I imagine she is wearing black boots.

Here's my version from last Sunday. 

I have the same playsuit. It's very short but very comfy. I wear mine with leggings as the playsuit is way too short for me to wear with just tights.  Especially if not ironed.

I have the same cardigan but in a pink colour. Clara wears this same cardigan in three colours. This is from another outfit. I added my brown belt from Think Twice in Antwerp and a charity-shopped black top. Yes, there is an eagle necklace too!

I wore this for a day at home. Mum came over and we went for lunch at the garden centre. I came home with a garden sieve and some eggs!

This Saturday evening my orchestra has a concert in Nottinghill.  We are performing Schubert, Mozart and Bartok.

Hope all is well with you!

xx

Cats and bees

Back in late August, CBC and I headed off to rural Essex to attend a friend's 50th birthday party.  It was really sweet that they actually asked us to check two dates before they announced the dates because they wanted us to be there.

They have a lovely house and beautiful gardens with a proper set of 'rooms' in the garden.  We all brought food along for the barbecue and accompaniments and stayed till quite late.  It was a really pleasant occasion.

For that party, I decided I wanted to wear a Summer dress that I hadn't worn at all this year or last (hoping and praying it still fitted as it is an 8!).  Luckily because it has a sheered back, it still fits perfectly.

It was bought for me by my Mum as an unexpected present in 2016. She rarely buys me clothes as she thinks I have too many but she saw this beautiful Bee dress from British Retro and bought it as a random present. It came with matching headband and is a full circle skirt in cotton sateen.

I teamed it with a cobweb, linen, lace Monsoon cardigan (charity shopped).

For the 'stuff' I added my bee and daisy necklace from Alex Monroe (40th birthday present from Dad and Stepmum) and wore, for the first time (as I had misplaced them!) these Monsoon embroidered espadrilles (charity shopped)

It was the perfect setting to wear the dress in their paradisiacal gardens.

As CBC took these photos, their cat, Slim Shady came along.  He waited by me. He then sniffed me.  In the 3rd picture below, I noticed him as he patted me with his tail. 

In the 4th, he placed a gentle paw on my calf.  I reached down and he reared up like a dog for his head to be stroked and in the final picture, he leaned over.  He's such a cutie!

They have a beautiful Rabbit ears plant, so I decided to accessorise with a couple of leaves!

Ah, I shall miss it when it grows to cold to wear such garments!

xxx
 

11 days update

Whoa, it's been 11 days since I last posted. I have been shattered since the return to school and despite having the long weekend, seem to have lacked the energy to post. More on that later.

Before I waffle, I thought I'd share an outfit I really liked from August in the holidays. I love, love, love dressing for Summer- sartorially, it's my favourite season as it's so nice to wear floaty and light items.

Despite the fact I don't fit into a lot of my old clothes now (I am broader round the middle and chest so I don't fit into lots of fitted size 8 tops and my shape is a little bit bigger, this outfit was one which i thought flattered my shape.

It features 2 items bought this Summer. plus 2 others which are older.

I don't have a top in this shape, so when it was the day of 38 degrees celsius and we finished school half way through the day, I ended up stuck at my interchange station for 30mins whilst we waited for the next train as they cancelled some because of the heat. I had a look in the charity shop by the station. It's quite an expensive, fancy one, but as the town is stockbrokerville, it has some nice pieces.

The top (£5.99) I bought was from Monsoon originally and is a lovely light top. It has little mirrored pieces round the neck.

The trousers are beach ones (£3.50)which came from a charity shop in my local town. This is very much my favourite style of trouser. Loose and more wide-legged.

In terms of shoes, I chose to wear these beaded and brown sandals from Lotus (brand new on eBay for £5) which I FINALLY found after not knowing where they were for the whole summer!

I added some metal and thread woven earrings from South Africa which were a present from CBC's old housemate when she had returned home. I felt like this outfit had Earth Mother, hippy vibes to it.

And now back to the present.

It's week 3 of school and you are reading from one who is full of snot, sore throat, cough and feeling rough. It started on Saturday with swollen tonsils for 2 days. Tuesday, I felt a little better after some sleep but by the time I reached the evening and had an orchestra rehearsal in London, I was really struggling with snot and sinuses aching. Today I've been coughing more and had very little voice. I've done Covid tests and so far negative but I've really struggled through the day with little energy. I really do feel rough now.

The trouble is, I don't want to miss school as the kids I've got tomorrow - one year 1 class is really difficult so I am behind with them anyway, because they are so hard to focus and Tudor dance with two classes.  I am having to teach them outside for Tudor dance with all the noise from PE lessons, playtimes, nursery playing instruments and general difficulties of outside teaching- it was really hard for them to focus and I just struggled.  Plus, I have my first session of Year 5-6 choir and I don't want to have to cancel it.

I've not really kept up with my school resolutions. Moaning has commenced with a vengeance.  Things not been so easy at school.  The new year 1 children are...different!  2 classes are ok and having a good go but oh, how I wish I had my music room- because it has no tables or chairs or things to fiddle with, it's so much easier to manage behaviour issues. The third class is very difficult.  There are lots of needs in there and not knowing all their names, their behaviour is challenging, being in a tiny upstairs room in the hall so it is noisy, makes it hard, and there are SO many things they are fiddling with.  

Early nights have not really particularly early.

 I've been fairly good at lunches- I've tried to have something fairly healthy prepared (it helps having homegrown cucumbers and tomatoes to eat), I've said some yesses to music and some no's!  

My Orchestra (the one I play with regularly) has been a bit tiresome- it's not been as fun as usual- I guess that's getting used to a new conductor who is not the charming Tom.

It was lovely having the bank holiday on Monday (I spent most it not feeling well so it was a good thing I wasn't at school teaching the year 3 kids the recorder for the first time!) even though it was for a sad reason.  It's hard to believe Queen Elizabeth II is no more. 70 years of a reign is amazing!!!  My only real memory involving her was that I played in the Golden Jubilee street performance- we played gamelan Baleganjur and paraded into the palace grounds and back along the Mall. It was great fun to take part in! During her 60th anniversary, I had a year 4 class and we all used pastels to create portraits of the queen in the style of Andy Warhol!

I'm waffling here so I bid you a good evening. I hope you are well.

xx

Holiday outfits

 I love dressing for a holiday!!! Dresses and skirts and pretty tops and light things. But I always like to have an option for covering up in the sun as I don't want to expose my skin too much, plus sun cream application is tedious plus I have moles on my back, arms that I am always a bit cautious of,

But, I thought it would be fun to document some of my holiday outfits.

Remember my £5 white, rayon, embroidered dress from the charity shop? I saved this for the day we were going to go to Saint Tropez but in the end, decided not to go- I wore the dress anyway.  I picked some flowers from the bush to try and trick my Balinese gamelan group into thinking I was in Bali! Worn with Belgian-bought belt and a pair of Primark flipflops bought from the charity shop for £1 the day before we went away!

Another photo to trick the gamelan group (the day bed was purchased in Bali from the house owner...who owns a house in Bali too! Lucky man!)

The outfit features the Monstera print linen dress I bought in Leigh when my trouser elastic went.  I added a white broderie anglaise button down blouse from Miss Selfridge for sun protection.

We visited Cannes one day (too hot for a city day!) even one by a beach. I wore a white cotton top from Next (charity shopped) which has some lace trims on. Along with that I wore this blue water patterned silk skirt from Monsoon (also charity shopped). I've had this as long as I've known CBC, bar one year! I wore it with my Saltwater floral sandals (second hand via Depop). Worn with silver Rieker sandals.

One evening we went to a local restaurant called The Two Pines. Here's what I wore. My royal blue cotton jersey Grecian dress from ASOS (bought in 2011) and I bought a lovely blue-patterned rayon blouse/cardie from a shop in Langue, a town we had visited that day. It was made in Bali, I think everything in that shop was made in Bali and it made me remember the smell in lovely shops in Bali. You can see my Rieker lattice Mary Jane shoes poking out. They are very old and extremely faded and not at all stylish but I love them for holidays and Summer. One of the lattices was broken and the local shoe mender patched it for me. Possibly my favourite outfit!

On the Tuesday of our holiday, CBC went off to Nice to do a big cycle ride on a hire bike. The rest of us visited Frejus, by the coast.  I wore my Phool soft cotton button down dress  (charityshopped) in red/pink.  I teamed it with the Topshop hat that Vix sent me as a present plus a Liberty paisley silk scarf from TK Maxx and my Seasalt sandals.  There was also a Per Una white cotton shirt I covered up with which wasn't in this photo! My hair got very windy here!

Another day, we had gone for a trek in the woods (with a HORRIBLE down-hill, scrambly bit!) as it was a cooler, rainy day. I was wearing a different outfit (see the Fromagery below) when we visited a village called Langue but had brought clothes to change into if we went on a trek.

Here you can see:

1970's cheesecloth blouse- this was a hand-me down from my Mum. This was my absolute favourite blouse that I wore all the time in Indonesia when I lived there. I teamed it with a Seasalt buff, worn as a headband (a present from my friend Ellie) and sand-coloured pin stripe linen shorts from Lidl middle aisles...plus my hiking shoes from Hitek!

Excuse the bad acting. This massive plant was in our garden at the house and we pretended it was some sort of Doctor Who monster!

The dress was a charity shopped viscose (I think) Ikat dress, loose fitting with a crocheted front- it had no labels so I don't know where it was from originally. This is what I wore in Nice.  You can see my Rieker shoes showing in this photo!

Ha! Here's my 2 piece swim suit.  This is from Speedo and I bought it at the Olympic pool in Stratford back in 2014 when we went to swim there and stupidly, I had forgotten my swimming stuff!!!  I like it very much because it has proper shorts (I do not like high cut swimsuits!) and a long top meaning a lumpy mole on my midriff is covered up!

Do you have a favourite?

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Bill Potts outfit from Smile

Hi there,

Hope you are well.

Today, for TARDIS Tuesday, I am returning, for a second time in recent times, to an outfit worn by Bill Potts, companion to the 12th Doctor. As I mentioned 2 weeks ago, Bill Potts' style is quite different from my own regular style but I ended up obtaining one or two of her screen accurate pieces very cheaply so decided to give a few of her outfits a spin!

The outfit featured in her second episode which was entitled, Smile. In this episode, the Doctor and Bill ended up in a place that had robots that spoke with Emojis. They seemed oh-so-friendly at first, but only if you keep smiling!

Let's look at her outfit:

https://www.shopyourtv.com/doctor-who-season-10-episode-2-bills-striped-bodysuit/

It seemed a bright and happy outfit for what seemed a bright and happy place.

She began with a colour-blocked stripe bodysuit from Topshop. With it, she wore ripped skinny black jeans (poss.also Topshop).  Her feet featured mint green and white hightop trainers from Vans and she had a bleached colour denim jacket from Topshop (mainly tied around her waist).  For accessories, she wore a mustardy-patterned hairbow and a silver guitar necklace.

https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/bill-potts-doctor-who-companion-fashion-hero/

https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/bill-potts-doctor-who-companion-fashion-hero/

And over to my version of this outfit. I did a slight variation on this outfit (from promo photos but there are differences) but this is the first time I have put together this outfit

As you can see, I did find the screen accurate bodysuit.  When I was an early teenager (Maybe 12), I had a bodysuit. It came from a shop in Ilford called Bacon's.  It was a marled blue colour with fitted short sleeves. It was really uncomfortable- the bodysuit buttoning up bit. I thought I would wear another bodysuit again but this one is amazingly comfortable and I like the bodysuit buttoning up meaning the top stays where it should (with my pear-shape, often fitted tops end up riding up and sausaging around my smaller waist.

Ripped jeans or skinny jeans shall never grace this body so as usual, we have my black ASOS work trousers.  These are considerably more snug on me than when I first bought them which I am not happy about. I like these trousers and do not want to have to replace them!

Instead of Bill's mint trainers, I wore my black hightop Ash black trainers (Clara shoes).  I added my charity shopped denim jacket (bought for Yaz originally).

I wore a Black floral wired headband (as I LOST my mustard one out on a walk in Brightlingsea in 2020!) I could not locate my silver guitar necklace so I wore a red glittery star instead.

And that's that! Hope you have a good week. As I type this up on Sunday evening (11.30pm eek- better get to bed!!!!! Bang goes that early-to-bed resolution!), I wish you a peaceful week.

xx

Will they, won't they?

When I used to live in my childhood home, we had a fig tree in the garden.  When I was the last inhabitant in the house (sister and mother had both moved out!), I grew to love that fig tree. Amazing, massive leaves and I tried the fruits as an adult for the first time and loved them!  They were really sweet, tasty and easy to eat though I had to compete with Mr Squirrel- I often shook my fist at him when I found them discarded with a bite out of them on the lawn! They always seem to be very expensive when fresh in shops so I really missed having that tree when I moved out.

Fast forward a few years and Mum gave me a small fig tree from Grandad's garden that he had grafted from cuttings from the original home one. 

We've had it in a pot for the last few years but never had any fruit. They never seemed to grow much. The one year, 2020, when it actually had 2 viable fruits on it, they dropped off in the heat when we were away. Last year, nothing grew.

This year, I noticed, fairly late, that there were quite a few embryo fruits developing.

Monty Don says that any Pea-sized fruits must be removed for Winter as they won't grow but I was hopeful, with the heat, that these might have a chance.

Here's a photo of a few of them.  They are still very small BUT, do you think there is any chance they will get bigger and ripen in time for me to FINALLY get to eat some?

It was lovely to pick ripe figs from the trees near our house in France. Will I get to picky my own?

Whilst I am here, here are some of the flowers currently in our garden. Most of the flowers have gone but we still have...

Purple Clematis.

Yellow roses.

Chilean Jasmine (We need to remember to bring this one in for Winter as last year's one got too cold outside!)

So, let's take your votes on the figs. They are about 4cm by 1.5-2cm-ish.... will they ripen and grow in time and if so, any tips to help them!??!

xx

France- Sacre Couer, Nice

 We travelled to France on Saturday 13th August.  We stayed at CBC's brother's flat the night before as there was a train strike so it would have been impossible to get there from home. As it was, luckily, the DLR, Elizabeth line and Circle lines were running so we were able to get there from his. We met CBC's mum at St Pancras for breakfast.  The queues to get into the Eurostar terminal were massive but well-organised and moved quickly.   It left on time, at around 10.20am and the journey went quickly.

We arrived at Gare du Nord in Paris and quickly joined the taxi queue to take us to Paris Gare de Lyon where we were to join our TGV train. Luckily the queue moved quickly and we were soon in a taxi. It cost around 14 Euros.  We didn't get the Metro as CBC's mum struggles to walk far, particularly with luggage. I was also glad as my soft bag on wheel had already got a slight rip at the seams and some small holes in the base which I would prefer not to stress too much. This meant I am rather over protective of anyone else picking it up as if it is picked up not evenly, the rips would get worse.

As it happened,the taxi man picked it up before I could stop him...and caused another rip in another place!AR HGHGHGHGA!!! CBC and his mum kept mocking me and making fun for being so overprotective of my bag but it wasn't them that had to cope with it!

At Gare De Lyon, we went to a Pret to get something to eat (they did. I just got a drink).

When the platform showed for our Nice train, we had to get moving. We had 10 minutes to go and of course, it was the most far away platform and our carriage was right at the end of a really, really, long Double-decker train!!! It was SUCH a walk and we only had about 2 minutes before our train left.

The train was due to take 5 hours but the journey seemed to go really quickly. We all had a bit of a sleep and we read books and ate snacks. I had bought cucumber, carrot sticks and tomatoes plus some fruit, crisps, chocolate and some M&S sandwiches.

The view from the train is brilliant once you reach the coast- it really is picturesque so I recommend it.

The journey was mainly pleasant and relaxed except for 2 incidents...one, where we happened to be staring out the window and saw some children by the rail tracks who threw rocks at the train!! The massive bang when they hit was really scary.  There was also a massive argument between two men...one who we think was really rude to his children!

We arrived to Nice at around 9.30pm at night and despite our hotel being only 800m away, CBC's mum insisted on getting a taxi...it cost 20 euros for 800m essentially! RIP OFF!

The hotel was very pleasant but we had to cart the luggage up a winding staircase.

We were too tired to go out for dinner so we went to sleep after a cup of tea with CBC's mum in our room.

The next morning, after a very pleasant breakfast in the hotel, we headed out to look around Nice. It was scorching hot but luckily, there were regular benches with white canvas canopies so you could sit and enjoy the sun without getting burnt.

I briefly paddled in the sea.

We headed to a lovely restaurant in Nice La Femme du Boulanger where we had a very pleasant 2 course menu with actual vegetables!!

We continued wandering  and came across the church,Sacre Couer.

It was a beautiful,modern church which had some lovely art works and windows of various kinds.

I took some photos to share some of them.

The outside.

The fotn was flanked by a beautiful mosaic.

Here there were coloured ribbons tied for prayers.

Various pulpits had mosaics too.

The main window, which had a banner saying, Dieu est Amour (God is love) was really striking.

The area behind the altar had more mosaics.

The altar was carved stone and there were more traditional stained glass windows.

As with many French catholic churches, there are various altars around the sides. Perhaps stations of the cross?

Here are some close ups of the main stained glass window.

After a while, it was time to meet CBC's brother, sister and her husband who had come to France by plane (we were the eco-friendly contingent!)

They picked us up in the hire car (sadly necessary for the location of our house for the week) and we headed off to La Motte, near Draguinan, an hour or so away from Nice where we met the host of our house but more of the house another day.

xx