It's been quite a few weeks since I partook in a TARDIS Tuesday post. I've been so busy and the weather has not made it easy to choose one of the outfits but today, I am returning to a favourite Clara outfit worn in Series 7 by Jenna Coleman. Last worn on the blog in July 2022
The print on this dress is of sequins but looks like flames, molten lava and all sorts from a distance!
I love this collar dress and it will probably remain my 2nd favourite Clara outfit apart from her tartan Hobbs dress. It looks very creased here! Ooops!
I've worn this as my Christmas dress for quite a few Christmasses but never out to a Summer engagement due to the synthetic nature of the material.
Here's what I am listening to as I write. A delightful flute trio by Tomasi.
Here are three word of the week poems from the last couple of weeks.
The first one used the word 'scramble' and as I was in the thick of loads going on, it seemed fitting that I write about all the things that have to be achieved at the end of term!
End of term
It's always a scramble to the end of term,
So much to left to accomplish,
So many lessons left to complete,
Several reading books to finish,
You might just be preparing
For an end of term class show,
Costume to source, positions to recall,
And lines you still don't know
Might be the school concert you're performing in,
Recorder club or choir,
Orchestra or drumming club,
Extra practices required.
Open Evening's a chance to shine,
Where parents see your art,
But SO many unfinished bits and pieces,
You're not sure where to start,
And then there's Sports Day, practice too,
Is needed for those races,
PE lessons honing those skills,
Put you through your paces.
Leaver's assembly for Year 6,
Words to write and read,
Mining your brain for memories,
Rehearsals in hot halls they need.
Then the dreaded clearing your tray,
A whole year of clutter and sheets,
Sorting pencils, mouldy stuff,
But hopefully the teacher has treats?
Conquer the smelly pile of lost property,
Searching for your sweater,
Lost your recorder, can't find your hat
And there's always a million letters!
There's cards to write and shirts to sign,
And perhaps presents to buy?
Your new teacher to meet and greet,
And school fayres with games to try.
But finally, it's all complete,
Nothing more to remember,
But don't forget it all starts again,
When you come back in September!
The next word was 'bananas'- as I'd already written my Fruit Cocktail party including Banana, I thought I wouldn't make it the star of the poem and it put me in mind of my dear flute teacher, Alan Laken, who used to tell me off for my 'banana fingers' which I used to hang over the keys of my flute rather than having my pads resting directly on the key. It was a bad habit he had to get me out of and then it reminded me of other habits I've had throughout the years!
My bad habits:
Over the years of playing the flute,
I've had several terrible traits.
At first, I'd lean, flute slumping on my shoulder
Instead of holding high and straight.
Time stampeded on, new teacher, new habit.
This time "Banana fingers".
Those fingers would dangle long over the keys,
Made them sluggish, slow, they'd linger.
The years rolled onwards and I developed the tendency
Of blowing without support from my core.
It meant my tone was not so strong,
And my sound could sound rather poor.
Now I'm an adult, supposedly know it all,
No shoulder flute, no bananas, no lack of support,
But I still have things to learn, I still listen to advice,
And give my playing some thought.
...I'll be back with a future report!
The final poem utilised the word 'Sandwich'. I decided to change this to Sandwitch and make a play on words. With profound apologies to Shakespeare as I butchered his Three witches spell! My mum tells me all of the original Three Witch scene items are all plants.
Before I start waffling, here's some music for you to listen to. I've not heard this piece by the English Composer, Gustav Holst (he of the Planets!) before but I was delighted by the opening music between viola and flute.
The term has ended and the last week went well.
The school concert went really well without too many mishaps and most of the children and their parents turned up. We started 15minutes late so it overran but I was really proud of how well the children performed.
One delightful thing that occurred was that I applied for a scholarship for one of my year 5 boys who we have been partly funding for flute lessons this year. He has really taken to it and worked hard and I wanted to ensure that he would be able to carry on after he left me so I applied to the London Music Fund and to my delight, he was selected to receive funding for lessons for 4 years. Such an opportunity for him!
I bought the children involved in the concert choc-ices (the only ice-cream/lolly product which comes in no plastic packaging!) to say thank you for their hard work and I was delighted with the serendipity that I had bought just enough for everyone AND enough to give one also to the children who had helped out and done extra jobs like putting away my singing assembly things each week and for tidying up the music room.
At the weekend, CBC and I went to camp in Snowdonia for the weekend. I had a stinking cold but had a gorgeous time and will share some photos soon.
I bade a sad goodbye to CBC this evening as he drove off to Portsmouth to catch the overnight ferry to France. We are to be parted for 2 weeks as we do different things - he is a checkpoint monitor for the Transcontinental Cycling Race and I am to go to music camp.
Enough waffling, I found some photos from last Summer (on my lost camera which turned up- it was in the walking rucksack!!!) of when I styled the Madras check dress in yet another way.
Let's have a look:
I wore the dress with its V-beck crossover side which I rarely wear as I prefer the straight one but I wore it the other way round here.
I added my pink Peri top underneath with a matching pink rose in my hair and a pink belt.
I added my red polka dot skirt underneath to give an extra layer of pattern to the dress
I decided to hoik up the hem of the dress on one side to see if that gave another dimension to this.
I am not 100% sure I liked this outfit totally but certainly it was different from how I've worn it on other occasions!
Plus my George @Asda blue and gold velvet pumps!
I've been practicing for our flute recital on Friday
Very excited as we've practised lots! I HOPE people come to watch especially as my friend Tony is coming from Kent as we are performing his beautiful arrangement of Debussy Petite suite for two flutes and piano for the first time.
Funnily enough, a while back, I wrote a poem called Punctuality Panic which used aforementioned word repeatedly but I decided to use the word in the background, not as the main star!
The phrase, "feeling blue" came to mind and I decided to make the poem slightly surreal or fantastical - just what would "feeling blue" become?
Last day of school!
I've been bitten right at the top of my thigh on the inner leg 3 times. Not a good place for 3 bites for someone who reacts to bites!!
Last week was incredibly busy for me in terms of performances and practices but also very positive.
Let me work backwards.
Sunday morning, I was up bright and early for church. As I usually do, I played my flute for the morning alongside Sue, our lovely worship leader on piano.
After this, I headed home and did a couple of things.
In the afternoon, we headed off to the Chelmsford countryside to our friend Annie's house to commemorate her lovely Mum, Inge's life. Inge died a year ago. The previous night, I had texted Annie to see if she would like me to play something for the scattering of Inge's ashes and she was delighted. I played Annie's Song and Gossec's Tambourin, two pieces that her Mum had liked a lot (the latter, my Mum made me learn when I was in Year 6 and I finally know why she liked it- apparently it was a Radio theme tune!
The vicar from Inge's church read a Bible verse and a prayer and then they played Inge's ashes in a hole and planted a beautiful rose.
We then ate delicious Indian food and enjoyed the garden.
He's Shady! He's more panther than cat but is very friendly.
I wore a shirred dress from Oliver Bonas that I admired last Summer but finally managed to find secondhand on Vinted in my size at a cheap price!
Back to Saturday night, CBC and I went to dinner at a gorgeous Vegetarian restaurant, inspired by Moroccan and Lebanese flavours called Sababa! All the food was tasty but I adore the Cauliflower wings!
Saturday, around 5pm, we went over to a colleague of CBC's from Azerbaijan who is a specialist Baroque musician. We played through some Handel flute sonatas with me on flute, him on Harpsichord and CBC on cello continuo. It was lovely. I'm not used to playing Baroque music much so it was a novel experience. Their home is beautifully decorated with vintage pieces in profusion. There was a whole line of cuckoo clock on the stairs and some beautiful Grandfather clocks!
Look at that beautiful inside!
Saturday morning, I woke up irritatingly early having got to bed very late and went out to water the garden at 7.15am.
We headed to Leigh on Sea for the annual Art trail. We bought my mum a piece for her birthday by Katrina Parris who we already own 3 pieces by.
Friday night, I performed the epic Mahler's 9th symphony with Orchestra of the City. This mammoth work is 90minutes long with a huge orchestra. It went fantastically but the church was very warm!
At school on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I hosted my very first outdoor Summer performances at 9.30-10.00 involving 180 children each time from years 1-6. They sang songs from Bangladesh, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Congo, Romania, Japan amongst others. All of them went well in their different ways!
Thursday night, I was supposed to be going to Gamelan but I discovered that I cannot do the gig next weekend at the Southbank Centre for an Asian festival so I had a much-needed evening off. I still had choir after school though!
Wednesday, apart from the aforementioned school performance, we also had Exhibition evening from 4-6 at school and then I had to go to an Orchestra of the City rehearsal in Vauxhall!
Tuesday night, I headed to CBC's school to play Tenor saxophone in his school Big Band barbeque. This was fun and I really enjoyed being part of this even though I was sight-reading everything!
Monday night, after Drumming Club and recorder club through the day, as well as regular music teaching, I headed off for a rehearsal with my flute trio/quartet (usually but 4th member is away) for our forthcoming recital in Brentwood on 25th July. We played through all our pieces and then I headed home.
It had been a super busy week, enjoyable, but I was sorely tired and it didn't help that I still kept waking up early!
1 week to go and the school concert is tomorrow night. Lots of parents still haven't responded to my multiple messages about it so have no idea how many are going to turn up!?!!
You always know it's Summer when my rainbow dress gets an outing! It likes to be a chameleon, cropping up in outfits in new and different combinations!
It was on Sunday, that I suddenly had a thought.
Could I turn the dress sideways, get my head through one of the shoulder straps- could I make it into a halter-neck dress?
After a little experimenting, and one moment of panic, I discovered...
Yes I could!
I discovered, that I could get my head into the hole. Although the pattern matching at the seam isn't great, it still worked!
At the back, I tucked in the other strap so it had a slightly lower back.
As it is a circle skirt, I suddenly thought about adding a tulle petticoat underneath to give it a bit of body and to puff it out. I added my TARDIS blue one!
A black belt to cinch the waist. Perhaps a blue one would have been better but I only have turquoise, not electric blue.
I decided to pin my hair up with a flower clip from Bali.
Here's a side view.
I decided to wear my TARDIS blue floral Irregular Choice pumps to go with the tulle petticoat.
What do you think of this new take on the dress?
Do you have any other suggestions for this dress styling?
The prompt word for the week was, Puzzle. I immediately thought of a Monkey Puzzle tree. There was a particularly fine example of one of these near where I grew up and I was always fascinated by this tree and equally enamoured by its name.
I imagined, in this short poem, what might happen if a Monkey encountered this tree.
My sister in law, who loves monkeys, commented, "Poor Monkey!" on the post!
I have worn my rainbow dress again. In case you have missed it. I bought this Madras rainbow-check St Michael's dress in a charity shop about 15 years ago and have never worn it the same way on this blog here every time it has featured- in fact, it has always been my goal to find more ways to wear this versatile dress. Last month, I wore it with a a white logo t-shirt here and I challenged people to give me ideas of how to wear it.
This time, I decided to use Ann's idea for how to style it:
Your Madras rainbow checked dress is gorgeous so I'm not surprised it's still going strong after 16 years. I love how you styled it as a skirt here and I'm looking forward to see you styling it as a top. Perhaps paired with your sailing boat skirt and stretchy belt? Your Mum's finished cardigan is absolutely fabulous! xxx
I don't think I've ever worn it as a top on here so this one appealed to me:
Here's my take on it:
Here I am just after my shower. As requested by Ann, I wore the dress as a top. I wore it with the round neck side and then tucked it into the lovely boat skirt which Ann gave me as a present. As it is quite high-waisted, it worked well with the dress and the length was perfect to hide the skirt!
I added my ancient silver Rieker sandals and added my Croatian Watermelon earrings and a Past Times ivy leaf pewter necklace which was a present from my Godmother (who came round last night!)
Later, when I went to the library and to drop off soft plastics to the Coop, I remembered to add a stretchy belt- this grey lacy Primark one and a grey Primark cardigan (both ancient) to match to my silver/grey sandals.
I quite liked this combination but I do miss seeing the pretty circle skirt!
Stay tuned for later this week as I had a brainwave about how I could wear it in a different way the next day!
Annoyingly, I was awake around 6am as CBC had to leave early for DoE but hadn't packed and hadn't set an alarm. Somehow, I woke up and warned him. He then raged around the bedroom trying to find things! By the time he left, I was thoroughly awake. I got up to make myself tea, read some of my book by Jiri Weil, Mendelssohn is on the roof, and went to water the garden.
It was delightfully overcast so I ate my breakfast and drank tea whilst I read my Bible readings for the day on the swing seat.
After having a shower, I did some stuff, ate left-over Thai food and then cycled to town to go to the library to order the new Hunger Games book. I had a quick look in the charity shop where I bought a lovely Fatface cardigan for my Mother in Law and bought myself a khaki green crocheted crop top. I cycled to the Coop to drop off a load of soft plastics. I bought 2 reduced Broccolis, a Viennetta (classic 80's dessert) and also some Choux pastries for my guests.
I then set to work doing some cleaning and tidying. We've had a bit of an ant problem for the last week and a half and I was determined to thwart them. Mum arrived mid-clean and I cleaned the kitchen floor. We then put some Cayenne Pepper onto the top of where we suspected a nest was. To my delight, since this time, we have not seen any ants!!! I am hoping and praying that is it!
My Godmother and daughter arrived around 7pm. We chatted, ate some snacks and had some refreshments and then I ordered a Chinese. Maria and I went to pick it up and we came back. Had a lovely time with them- lots of laughs! They all went around 10pm.
This morning, I woke up for church, actually earlier than my alarm so it wasn't the usual last minute dash! We had a visitor from Tearfund and I really enjoyed his sermon which was brilliant.
I came back home and had a phone call to my dad. I then went into the garden and did some pruning and cutting back on my roses, Viburnam, Acanthus and then sorted some washing. I then spent some time putting clothes away in the bedroom and hoovering. I also had long phone calls to my Mother in Law and my sister.
This week is another busy one! I have 3 performances at school in the playground, involving 180 children at a time, Exhibition evening at school, a flute trio rehearsal, a Big band barbecue, an orchestra rehearsal, a Gamelan rehearsal AND an orchestra concert- all in 5 days!
Hope all is well with you!
x
P.S.
I found two more posts where I wore the dress in different ways:
In times where there is so much bad news and hardship, it is good for the soul to consider what I am grateful for. Here are some specific moments!
1. Wonderful sprinkler in the garden. CBC was sprinkling the garden so I changed into my swimming costume and enjoyed a soaking!
2. Tried Kohlrabi for the first time. Was quite pleasant. All the nicer because CBC prepared it! I had no idea what to do with that purple beast!
3. Kind staff members came to help out when I put out a plea for a bluetooth speaker! They brought theirs in and they worked brilliantly!
4. Did my first outdoor Singing performance practice today. It was boiling but the kids did well!
5. So grateful I have aircon in my music room. I feel so sorry for years 4,5,6 which have boiling classrooms!
6. Grateful for a combination of kind people on Sunday. I arrived at my orchestra concert rehearsal to fid that I had forgotten my music. Only one of the pieces was available through IMSLP online so I phoned my neighbour who went into my house with spare key, found and took photos of my music, sent them via Whatsapp. I then sent the files to the 1st oboist who put them onto his Kindle for me and the 2nd flautist sent them to her husband to print them so I had printed copies for the concert.
7. The concert on Sunday was AMAZING! We performed Saint Saens organ symphony and it was SUCH an experience. The ending was superb! All my piccolo moments went well!
8. Had 2 evenings off without anything on- was lovely to relax in the garden.
9. Grateful I got my reports done!
10. Managed to use up some jars in the cupboard and start some new ones. We may eventually clean out the cupboard of tea, jams, honeys and chutneys. The amount we have of all of the above is ridiculous! CBC likes starting new ones without finishing old ones. I use old things up!
Your Madras rainbow checked dress is gorgeous so I'm not surprised it's still going strong after 16 years. I love how you styled it as a skirt here and I'm looking forward to see you styling it as a top. Perhaps paired with your sailing boat skirt and stretchy belt?
ReplyDeleteYour Mum's finished cardigan is absolutely fabulous! xxx