TARDIS Tuesday Yaz Khan from the series 11 promo

Hello there!

It's been 3.5 years since I shared this cosplay inspiration on the blog! I've worn the items in many other outfits and together but it's the first time I've posted it for a while. Last worn here.

The inspiration is the outfit worn by Yasmin Khan in her introduction images as companion to the 13th Doctor 

Image borrowed from 

https://pocketmags.com/doctor-who-magazine/528/articles/412905/mandip-gill-is-yasmin-khan

She wears a starry navy sweatshirt from Maison Scotch, black trousers, a denim jacket, black and pink socks and space buns in her hair!

And here's moi!

I wore this outfit for church on Sunday though ended up wearing my raincoat to cycle in as it was mizzling again.

I was playing for two services again and leading the songs/worship from the piano. It was lovely particularly in the 2nd church as there were 3 of us in the band and the lovely lady who was singing with me and I sang various harmonies with each other and the drummer really fitted well with us. I'm still finding my feet leading a worship band but apart from one moment, we were really as one.

After the service, I cycled home, even the 2.2 cycle feels easier after doing it for a few weeks.

I felt very hungry so popped into Londis to buy some bacon (sorry veggies) and made a delicious bacon baguette for brunch.  Managed to also get the majority of the cleaning, tidying, washing done when I got home. CBC had a delayed flight so didn't get back till the middle of the night so I ironed his shirts ready for the week. No, I don't usually do that since he wears them so he irons them but I do do them sometimes when I think he's stressed or busy or away.

I wore my trusty ASOS black trousers, probably my most worn item on this blog and added my Maison Scotch sweatshirt. I like it, it's cute and comfy and relatively smart...for a sweatshirt.

I actually wore a denim jacket this time as I had a charity shopped one bought a couple of years ago.

Couldn't resist recreating the photo since my sofa and cushion are a good match! My hair was in desperate need of a wash in this photo. I usually wash it on Saturday morning but I was doing cleaning so I waited and then I woke too late to do on Sunday morning and then spent too long cleaning to have time to do it.

CBC told me I was mad to do so much cleaning but I'm fed up of the house being dirty and feeling like a pig sty so it felt good to get it done. I was watching Jon Pertwee's Doctor Who whilst I did various cleaning jobs and/or listening to vocal recordings in prep for an upcoming recording  we are doing next weekend of my A'level Music teacher's Christmas cantatas.

Notice, the serendipitous socks I chose to wear- oh look, they match hers!!! Good thing you can't see the large hole in the heel!  Maybe this pair had better make their way to school to join the myriad socks I gave to the lunchtime provision staff to use for some sort of sock puppet craft! Oh yes, I will find a use for anything I can!

Hope all is well with you!

xx

The week that was

 Hello,

Hope all is well with you.

Well, we didn't win the choir competition on Tuesday but we had a great, exciting day!

We had an epic journey of walking around 3/4 of a mile to the station, getting a train and then tube and then a 3/4 mile walk up a hill.  The rehearsal went ok- we had a moment where we realised that one of children had not brought her dinner with her (or water bottle), despite being asked twice if she had her dinner! The children were very noisy when they weren't performing which did get a little tiresome after a while and I discovered at school, that one of the boys had hidden another girl's lunchbox...luckily, I managed to find where it had been hidden but I did have to start our journey with a stern word. Other than that, they behaved mostly and there was, Ann, you will be glad to learn, NO VOMIT GATE!

The standard of the other schools was really high. The winning school chose a really great pair of songs that really showed off the children's voices beautifully and I had them as the winners in my mind almost immediately.  The second song, an environmental song called Breathe, was really evocative. The other schools gave great performances and a really interesting set of choices of repertoire. The school who got second place had a hilarious version of 'This old man' which made me really giggle and they sang a song with hatography (they did lots of movements with hats)- wasn't so keen on their first song but they were really polished and brilliant! We didn't get to hear the choir that came 3rd as we were back stage waiting to go onto stage. 

Our first song went quite well, a song called Dreamer, and then our second song, Water Come o' me eye, had a hairy moment in the middle.. After singing the 2 verses beautifully in unison, the children go into 4 parts where 3 groups sing different riffs/ostinati (repeated patterns), at this point, the 2nd group, rushed off out of time with the others.  I had to conduct really hard to try and get them to realise they were out of time, and eventually, managed to get them back together, but it was quite obvious. I was glad they were able to get back in time though.  The third song, Can you feel the love tonight, was pretty good although we could have done some more dynamic changes.  

I was asked by the teacher of the next school after us to turn pages for her at the piano which was scary! I am always scared of messing up. Luckily, I didn't but it was a bit nerve-wracking!

When they announced the judge's comments, A, star pupil, was sitting next to me, and as soon as we had been given our feedback, she leaned over and said, "We definitely haven't won, we got WAAAY more feedback than the others!).

The kids were disappointed, but most were pragmatic about not winning.  The chair of our governors also came to watch as well as my headteacher.  The chair and one parent told me well done and another parent messaged me to say thank you and well done but I didn't get anything from any other parents really.

Luckily, all parents turned up to pick up their children, two were a bit late but I managed to get home by about 10.15pm!

The next day, I was super tired but luckily had Year 5 doing a lesson I know and love well, creating their opening to Vltava in groups.  The year 6 class I had last lesson were a bit tiresome though- they were very lethargic although seemed to enjoy watching the BBC Ten Pieces version of Winter from the Four Seasons. I was sent home 10mins early from staff meeting after school as I was falling asleep in it (apparently, so was everyone else though!).

Thursday was quite a good day for the year 3 recorder lessons.  The year 2's were ok starting their first lesson on Communication. In choir, I started two new songs, one I wrote about 15 years ago called 'Peter Piper' which is a tongue twister song and its the first time I have taught it since then!!! A requested a vocal score as she prefers to follow the notes.

Friday, my year 6 lessons were quite enjoyable and I started a Greek Persephone theme for their Singing Assembly- I found a book in the cupboard which I've never used and I decided to give it a go! I'm going to do a Peter Pan theme with the Year 3-4's and a Dinosaurs and all that rubbish theme with Year 1-2. I might get them to perform to each other in the playground in July!

After school, I had to rush off to the hospital for yet another scan. It was a bigger one and I had to lie there on my tummy for 20minutes (needing the loo!) as they did a contrast dye scan etc. I read my book as they did it and Yomi, my lovely scanning operator commented how relaxed I looked!

I cycled home from the hospital (despite being told to wait an hour) and then watched Dr Who all evening after picking lots of kale and chard in the garden to eat with sausages from the freezer.

CBC is in Majorca/Mallorca this weekend for the Malloca 312 (km!) race/ride so I was a bit lonely.

I've been doing some cleaning and tidying today and I'm glad I managed to get some sorting done though not as much as I wanted to. Ah well.

Tomorrow morning, I've got to play piano/lead worship at church- bit nervous as some of the songs are  not so familiar to me as last week.

Then, I need to carry on with the cleaning and get some school work done.Not ideal for a Sunday...

Hope all is well with you!

xxx

When the sun came out in Britain...

When we returned from Girona, we had around 4 days of lovely weather where I wore actual summery clothing without a covering of cashmere! I took some photos!

I thought I'd share those brief halcyon days' outfits to show it really did warm up...albeit briefly.

This outfit was one I actually bought in Girona! I know, I don't need any more clothes!!! 

I tried the trousers on- a beautiful light-weight chambray with a sort of broderie-anglaise pattern on them- they are not polka dots! In the shop, I grabbed this top to try on with them- white and red striped with ruffled shoulders...and liked the combination too much!

Fun fact, I went into the shop to try on some denim sailor trousers I saw on a mannequin. CBC saw me try those and then got bored in the 2 seconds he was waiting for me so he popped across Rocacorba, a cycling shop across and along a bit. When I came out the changing room in this, he'd gone.  The shop keeper said, "You can go and show him if you want."  She let me walk out the shop in her new clothes and walk to go and find him which was very nice and trusting of her!

I definitely wanted to add a beret to this outfit..and my Lotus pumps which I wore all holiday!

Not 100% sure that this outfit quite works...at least,I'm not sure about the chunky shoes.

The whole lot came from charity shops. The shoes and the trousers were bought last week (Rieker and Topshop via Chazzer respectively)

Plus my Solar system necklace from My Pretty Little Earth (via CBC for Christmas)

The snowball plant has almost reached its peak (the petals are turning more creamy...a couple of days and they will be ready!)

This was for church last week (not this week).

A Heywood floral blouse and Boden cashmere cardie (via charity shop) plus Hollyhocks daisy earrings and Lotus pumps (Haltwhistle shoe menders shop)

I thought this fly was very attractive so he got his own photo!

No TARDIS Tuesday as I am at the competition!

xx

The weekend that was

 Well, it's been quite a busy week.

I had to leave school early for my hospital appointment (nothing conclusive...more scans...though he hadn't had access to the last week scan results...where are they!?!?!).Got completely soaked cycling from the station. Luckily, on the way home, it was fairly dry so rather than cycling to the train station, I decided to cycle all the way home.  Went via town and bought a red dress in the charity shop (bad girl) as well as a walking stick I figured could work as Long John Silver's crutch for Treasure Island for school (the main reason I went into the shop....promise Guvnor!) and headed home with something from Greggs!Was so nice to be home EARLY!

Friday night, I met CBC to go and watch amazing unaccompanied 8 part vocal group, Voces 8.  They were performing at Southend Plaza  Centre. 

What a wonderful experience it was!  They were exquisite- the beautiful range of songs they sang, from the glorious polyphony of the Renaissance to Jazz classics such as  Straighten up and Fly right to songs my modern composers.  We were kept rapt throughout!   We were really lucky to hear them for the reasonable price of £10 per ticket (Voces 8 are such a renowned group that most venues charge a lot more)- there has been government support for concert series' in Southend but this has been rescinded permanently this year. This is very sad.

After the concert, we headed out for a Thai meal.  This was delicious!

The next morning, I woke up and headed downstairs to tackle the previous washing up.  Eventually, we headed into London to meet CBC's family for this sister's 40th birthday celebration.  

We went to Caravan for some lunch and then headed to a place called the Lightroom for an exhibition called MoonWalkers which was all about the Apollo space expeditions, an immersive experience. It was utterly brilliant and I left feeling awe-inspired and more knowledgable about previous visits to the moon. There was so much footage and photo and things to look at and I ended up feeling pretty excited by the Artemis mission which is set to go to the moon next year.  There haven't been any moon missions in my lifetime so I was intrigued by how it would feel to be here in for one 'live' as it were.

After this, we headed over to Dishoom, an Indian restaurant which I have heard blog friend Vix speak very highly of.  I can confirm, it was EXCELLENT!!!  All the dishes I chose were fantastic and I tried some of other people's (we sort of shared....).  I had a prawn dish for starter which I shared with CBC who had the Dishoom Chaat. I then had Lamb chops, a Chilli corncob dish, garlic naan... and had some rice and other bits from others. They were so yummy!

We headed home and headed to bed.

This morning, I was up bright and early for church as I was leading worship (AKA playing piano  and singing and trying not to make mistakes!) for the 2 different church services. I had chosen the songs and could play the ones I had chosen.  Mostly went well and both were lovely services with everyone singing their hearts out. Once I'd cycled the 2.5 miles from church no.2 to home, I checked my phone and discovered my friend Izzie asking me if I could attend an orchestra rehearsal to cover the oboe part in 1 hour!  Managed to phone another member in the orchestra who lives locally to me, who hadn't left yet, and she picked me up and we travelled the 40minutes it takes to drive there.  Unfortunately, we discovered the oboist hadn't left her parts (sheet music) there so I ended up playing the entire rehearsal from my tinnnnnnny phone screen as we'd downloaded the parts from IMSLP (very useful website).  It was quite a fun rehearsal and I enjoyed trying the oboe part! Always lovely to see my friends in that orchestra.

Once we'd driven home, I somehow procrastinated a lot and here we are!

CBC and I made a late dinner of Halloumi, shallots, broccoli and tomato plus a bowl of leftover nettle soup. 

Eeek!! The final of my choir competition is THIS Tuesday so prayers, fingers crossed and happy thoughts all appreciated!  Not sure we have a chance of winning against the 5 other schools who I know are good but here's hoping!  Can we also pray for NO repeat of VOMIT GATE last year and that all the parents turn up to pick up their children on time and no one is sick!

Hope all is well with you....

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Yaz Khan Flux

Hey there!

Hope you are well!

As you read this, I shall be back at school (Boo hoo!). I am grateful that we have an extra day off, returning on Tuesday rather than Monday although woe to the poor classes who keep missing Mondays! I teach two year 1 classes, one year 3 & one year 4 but since I have three of each class to teach in a week you can imagine how it wreaks havoc with my scheduling and delivery of plans to those year groups. At least it wasn't as bad as last year with NINE Mondays missed for various reasons!

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/television-academy-board-directors-nne-ebong-jamily-hunter-1235090265/

Anyway, onto our outfit inspiration!  This outfit was worn by Yaz Khan for the opening episodes of Flux, series 13 of Doctor Who.  I actually can't believe I wore this in November 2021, that's so long ago!

https://twitter.com/bbcdoctorwho/status/1454058707160113158

Since I wore this outfit last, the shirt was identified as the Bernie shirt from All Saints. I found one brand new with tags for about a 10th of the original price but I haven't worn it for photos yet.

She also wears her All Saints jacket, some button up black trousers (not been IDed but I did see an All Saints pair of trousers which had similar buttons...), Dr Marten Leonore boots, Alex Monroe Y&Z necklaces for Yaz plus a brown buckled belt.

Here's my 2024 rendition!

I featured the All Saints shirt.  It is so beautiful and soft to wear and lovely and wafty.

The colour is super intense in real life!

I wore my charity shopped £3 fake leather jacket.

The trousers I am wearing this time are much better than last time as they are more fitted.  They're ASOS charity shopped.

Mum's brown belt is back to play and I wore my Dune Pacey black boots to go with the outfit.

I wore my KZ floral necklaces from Avon (via eBay).  I don't know why I enjoy the fact that saying Kay- Zee, sounds like saying Kezzie.  It's the small things in life....

Couldn't resist doing a side by side of this short and added in some rubbish looking buttons! Ha!!!

I'm happy we are coming into the cooler-clothes season but it means TARDIS Tuesday gets a little trickier!

I hope all is well with you!

Kezzie xx

Green Springs

It was amazing to return to sunshine and warmth in the UK yesterday! Apparently, we are to have a few days of sun and warmth before a return to the cold and misery next week, at least it was, according to the Charity shop lady I chatted to today.

This morning, CBC dropped me off to the place where I was to have my ultrasound and internal scan.

I had to drink a litre of water one hour before and then wait until they'd done part 1 of the ultrasound before I could go to the loo.  The appointment was a bit delayed so by the time I went in, I was really struggling!!

After the appointment, I went across the road to the busstop to get a bus to Mum's house.  I had just missed the bus by 1 minute and the next one wasn't for 20 minutes. (It actually didn't turn up for 40mins and there were two of them!) 

Luckily, there was a charity shop by the busstop which I looked in. It was really nice and I found 2 things.

They had a nice Sheffeld Ukelele for £5 which I couldn't resist for school as an extra and I bought a pair of Rieker black and grey heels. 

Mum had made some delicious tomato soup for lunch with sour-dough. It was lovely to see her and to look round her beautiful garden!

I 

The Rowan tree behind me was just a twig when Mum bought it. As usual, her green fingers have made it thrive.

Here's what I wore.

I started with an Anokhi tunic top which I bought in a charity shop a few years ago. I am so glad Vix introduced me to Anokhi through her blog- the cotton is such amazing quality- it's a joy to wear!

I added my green speckled skirt.  This was handmade for me in Bali 19 years ago.  I bought the material from a lovely shop on Jalan Sulawesi in Denpasar, Bali.  It was full of contemporary patterned batik in bright colours.

Since it matched my Monsoon hat, I had to wear them together

The belt was from Landsend and I bought it from a boutique in Cardigan. I cannot believe it, but I paid £30 for this belt!  Utter madness!!!!

Added to this was my charity shopped Denim jacket and some blue pumps from Lotus (bought from Haltwhistle shoe shop), some earrings and my Nan's necklace (which had fallen off in this picture...but I didn't realise!

It made me so happy to wear lighter clothes again like this week in Girona!  So much nicer than Winter clothes!

xxx

Homecoming Dinner

 CBC and I got home this afternoon, around 5.30pm after 6 days in Girona, Italy.

We had a lovely time. Couldn't believe we came home to glorious sun and some warmth!

We didn't have a huge amount of fresh food in the house but I went out into the garden and 

discovered the chard has boomed! I cut a veritable bouquet of it. It's quite expensive to buy in the supermarket (when you can get it) so I'm gleeful this is self-seeded from last year's also self-seeded.

The kale plants are really trying hard to flower and go to seed but I've discovered the small flower buds look and taste rather like tender stem broccoli. I also still managed to pick lots of kale.

In the right flower bed,the three-cornered leek (self-seeded) is surrounded by Forget-me-nots but is still growing so I picked lots of that.

The Lemon Balm has started growing again so I picked some of that too.

Wasn't sure what to make for dinner.  We struggle to get back into the swing of cooking after being on holiday.

I had a brainwave.

I got two blocks of noodles (from the Refill shop) and put them into a saucepan along with the kale-occoli plus lots of Chard stalks. I added hot water and set it to medium heat.

I then made up some Miso paste into a thick liquid with about 100ml of hot water which I added into the saucepan.  Once it had been going for a bit, I added in a bit of vegetable stock (from a sadly,now closed Refill store) and the chopped up Chard leaves. I also discovered a third of an old courgette lurking in the fridge from a week ago and chopped that into small pieces and added it in.

I then beat an egg in the old miso jug and threw it into a small saucepan along with lots of chopped up 3-cornered leek and pepper and left it to cook. 

I served up the noodles, broth and veg into a bowl and added some more chopped 3 cornered leek plus I poured some Sesame oil on top.

Finally, I cut up the leek omelette into pieces and added on top.

Very pleased that it ended up being delicious and was very little effort to make plus quite healthy with 4 types of green veg plus the veg.  Plus it was pretty cheap to make!

I served it with Lemon Balm tea!

TARDIS Tuesday - The Horns of Nimon Romana

Hi there,

For TARDIS Tuesday, I am featuring Romana for a second week.  Mainly because, when I was putting together last week's look, I spied a garment in the cupboard that reminded me that on my 'To do' list for TARDIS Tuesday was this look from Romana in an episode called 'The Horns of Nimon'.

This is one of Romana's more Doctory looks!

 

 https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/romana-ii-the-horns-of-nimon/

It's a great look which has very equestrian vibes and is again, part of Romana's common palette of white and red!

I decided to do a closet cosplay of this, e.g. none of the items are actually obtained for this outfit but  I had anyway.

It's very much an approximation but hopefully, a nod to the original.

I started with the red jacket.  It's a slightly different shade and shorter. It came from Primark and I bought it about a decade ago.

The next garments I selected from CBC's wardrobe.  His Darcy shirt came from the Regency Shirt Co. and I recently discovered that Paul McGann wore this same shirt for his 'Night of the Doctor' 50th anniversary outfit.

I then grabbed his waistcoat he bought for his Newt Scamander outfit for Harry Potter night at his school.  I've used this same waistcoat for 2 of my Yaz Khan outfits as well as wearing his entire Newt outfit for World Book Day.

I knew my eYe Boutique boots would be fine for the boots but the trousers presented me with a problem. I had white linen trousers but they were too baggy. Leggings were too tight so I remembered this pair of mink coloured bamboo trousers that Mum bought me a good few years ago. These have always been an awkward item in my wardrobe- not a flattering colour OR shape for me but they've sort of survived in my legging bag.

So that's the entire look!

If I could wear better trousers, I'd wear this outfit for school but those trousers will never be seen in public!!!

What would you do to improve it?

Hope all is well with you!

xx

19 years of blogging!

 Today  is my 19th blogiversary!

19 years ago, there I was, working  as PA to the principal of the Royal Academy of Music  whilst my friend  Rach was working  as PA to the  principal of Oak Hill bible  college. Rach had started her blog, and I had been reading  it for  a few weeks. The PA workload, at that time, wasn't  huge! I thought it was a really  good idea for writing  thoughts. 

My first  few posts were just random, enthusiastic  waffle. Over the years, I wrote  more and more and then  less as life got busy. 

I still love  blogging  even  though there  are less of us! So happy  to have met several  of you lovely  friends  in real life- Ang, Vix, Ann, Melanie, Lauren, Lily, Sophie, Hazel, Bev, Denise...

I would love to meet some of my other good friends but for now, here's  to year 20!

The Bridge

 We made a visit to Leigh on Sea on the estuary.  A short walk down to Old Leigh and we walked as far as this iconic bridge. It is the inspiration for many local artists.

Ggg

TARDIS Tuesday- Romana's swansong look from Warrior's Gate

Hello there!

For TARDIS Tuesday this week, I am debuting a new outfit AND it's another red one! 

It features in my favourite Classic Who companion, Romana's final serial called Warrior's Gate.

Romana had a real eclectic, costumey set of outfits in her wardrobe and her style is very much up my street!

Today's one is quite different from her usual look but not her usual colours:

Here's the designer's initial drawing of the outfit:

http://www.4thdoctorcostume.com/2015/06/lalla-wards-time-capsule.html

https://aminoapps.com/c/doctor-who-cast-crew/page/blog/romana-iis-outfits-ranked/6qpR_leSzukZwpj3n1ZVGYpKqKDpLlg15

As you can see, she wears matching red socks to go with the top and black Mary Jane shoes to match her black trousers.

https://doctorwhoworlduk.com/romana-2-gallery

The high-necked, almost Mandarain look blouse has covered buttons all over it- I hope there's another way to get in and out of it as otherwise, that set of buttons would take a LOT of time to do!

Here's my look!

I started with a high-necked top from River Island (bought from Vinted) which has lovely flowing sleeves. It's not my usual top silhouette but is really comfortable.  Although I didn't have identical coloured socks to accompany it, at a distance, they seem to match.  I wore these socks for my Romana Shada outfit too!

My shoes are from Clarks and are T-bar shoes but I tucked in the  T-bar and kept the ankle strap part.

You can see those lovely sleeves in this picture (which is a behind the scenes picture from @doctorwho_60s_70s_80s

Couldn't resist trying to (VERY BADLY!) recreate this picture!  Ha, ha, how bad is my editing!!! The MS Publisher equivalent of using Paint program!

The silhouette of this look, for me, is very much, Female Conductor! I feel like I've seen female conductors wear something similar in different colours! I would wear this for a choir performance when conducting or leading them!

I recently watched this on BBC iPlayer for the 2nd time and I enjoyed it but there was a lot of to-and-froing plus I thought the way Romana left was very abrupt!!!

What do you think of this look?  For a lot of Who characters, they find this look kind of boring but I like the thought of this being in silk!

xx