The Allendalek

The last time we were in Northumberland at February Half term, one day, CBC and I drove to Allendale, a really vibrant remote town a distance from Hexham.  We've spent new year there before for the tar barrel burning but I've not been there since.
We were hoping to go to the Museum of Classic Sci-Fi to see the Allendalek which has courted controversy in the last year or so.

Alas, the museum was closed that day but since we were there, we went into the Forge cafe to eat lunch and look at some artwork.   To our delight, we saw this beautiful Stained glass piece which is of the Allendalek.  The museum is actually just behind the stained glass Dalek.

Here's hoping we get to see it the next time we are in Northumberland.
xx

5 brooches #64

Hello there!

It seems such an inordinate amount of time since I have shared a brooch post so I thought I should rectify that immediately!

 Up first is the brooch I always wear for the very first Recorder lesson I teach to Year 3.  I give them a whistlestop tour of the history of the Recorder and then show and play to them all the recorders in the recorder family. The little bonus at the end of the lesson is that I share with them that this little brooch is made by the Recorder makers- Mollenhauer - and it actually plays. It is a scaled down recorder brooch made out of Rosewood I think. Or Tulip wood or something like that! I love the colour of it. I wore it with a beautiful Treble Clef necklace which was a present from two sisters at the end of the year!

Here I wore this cute Compass brooch which has a spinning arrow which I received in my Wanderlust mystery box from Kimchi and Coconut! The whole box was amazing!

 Both of these pins, hard to see in this picture, advocate reading- Read More and Book worm!
I've just finished Day of the Triffids and think I did do both of these things!

 Lastly, here is a cute little Dalek brooch from 'Down the Rabbit hole'-  I wore him with a Clara outfit-though one she wore with Cybermen rather than daleks, alas!!

 I know some of you aren't really interested in brooches but I do like doing these little round ups!

Hope you are well.

xx

Advent Day 23- the best Christmas pudding ever (with cameo from the daleks!)

So in the early days of my Advent calendar this year, I alluded to my long-term dislike of seasonal desserts. My mother, of course, knows of this as she has long suffered my fussiness at Christmas with the pudding course!

On Tuesday, when we went to hers for a pre-Christmas dinner (delicious vegetable casserole!), she said she had made us Christmas pudding for dessert, especially aimed at me.

 Yup.  Christmas pudding!

 She does not lie, that looks like a Christmas pudding.

 But a malted Chocolate Christmas pudding!!!!!

 Those are malteasers on the outside. Chocolate buttercream with white chocolate on top. Marzipan holly. Chocolate sponge inside.

Served with homemade Malteaser ice-cream.

CBC, ever the imaginative asked if it was modelled on a dalek???

Mwa ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


xxx

TARDIS Tuesday: Hunt the hidden Daleks!

It's one to those TARDIS Tuesdays where you think I am just parading around in one of my ubiquitous floral frocks. You might be right- I own this Closet dress in about 6 different patterns- very sad that the shop that sells these near school is closing down as the proprieters are retiring- I've shopped with them for well over 15 years.

Anyway, onto the main event.

 Why TARDIS Tuesday?

Number 1, TARDIS blue tights (SO annoying- have to hoik them up every 10 minutes and no, I can't be bothered to be dignified about it and wait until no one is around- cannot stand the sensation of saggy tights)
Number 2, TARDIS blue accents on dress.

Number 3- Erstwilder fish brooch is a highly suspect reference to the underwater nature of the last two episodes.
Not convinced?

Ok, bring out the big guns: Dalek cufflinks! (You were wondering where the daleks were hidden, weren't you?!)

I've had these for many years now as this charity-shopped shirt required cufflinks (it too is old), but a certain CBC borrowed them one day in need of cufflinks and it took me several years to get them back!

I'm sorry if you think my text accompanying an outfit is verbose, I feel like it comes across that way sometimes.  I know some people are minimal about it, but I think it's nice (and necessary in tenuous cases such as this) to justify and explain my sartorial choices!

An InLinkz Link-up

If I were in charge of Clara's wardrobe....

 ....I'd be sure to choose this dress for her.  In some ways, it is a combination of several Clara dresses-
Journey to the centre of the TARDIS she wears a quirky patterned dress with black shirt collar in a similar shape; in another episode, The name of the Doctor, she wears a green and blue tartan mini-dress with a black collar (here).

 This one comes from a brand called Closet, whose dresses I have been collecting over the past 6 years.  There's a little independent shop near school that has sold them since before they got into shops like House of Frazer, Debenhams, Asos and online.  That shop still sells them as their main brand and periodically, if I am headed up to London, I nip in there as it is close to the station.

I like a lot of their dresses that are in cotton material- they do do other materials like scuba and synthetics, but it is definitely the cotton ones that I like best. Plus, I know that I can just buy one without trying it on and know it fits me perfectly- their size 8 is always my perfect size.

In case you think that is entirely too tenuous for TARDIS Tuesday, then I did add a Dalek pin badge for a little extra geeky points!

Today, I took my year 6's to play a Javanese Gamelan orchestra. We always study Balinese and Javanese gamelan in the summer term and I am lucky to be able to access one at our local music school for free - firstly because our music school offers that service but also, that I am a gamelan player myself, therefore am allowed to take my own groups to teach them there. We had a great time and they did really well- I took a video of them playing and it sounded really effective! This is the Javanese gamelan in case you are wondering and the piece that we learnt (this is not us!) ....


 The other class goes next week! Also, another school has agreed to lend me some timpani so my darling little girl who is playing the timpani parts in orchestra on Bass Chime bars gets to play real timps at last!!! How cool is that!?!

Hope you are all well!
xx

An InLinkz Link-up

Debaubled.

I smiled when I saw this celeb called Lauren Conrad wearing this IM Monday outfit with the Two Birds- skater dress and hat- yes, I like the sound of that!



You have seen this dress once before-it was the base of my Dalek dress.  I extracted it from the bag it was in, along with the sink plunger and whisk and debaubled it.  Add a straw hat and turquoise pumps (couldn't find my electric blue shoes sadly!)

I came home today because I felt really unwell- queasy and had horrid tummy cramps.  I changed into the skater dress which is really good because it doesn't clench your tummy.  I wasn't going to do it today but my mum came over to see me when she discovered I wasn't feeling well.  Being in the garden was restful and restorative- sunshine is such a beautiful thing.

Hope you are ok.
xx

52 weeks of happy (weeks 2 and 3)

Alas, I missed out on last week, so here's a 2x +2 post (i.e. two weeks worth of 4 plus a m=bonus 2).



1. Snow silliness! Yes, it can be scary walking and travelling, after my broken wrist and sprained wrist of 2 years ago, I am over-cautious, but it still puts a romantic, beautiful sheen on everything!

 
2. CBC’s experimental cookery-
Bear with me on this.  He'll be really cross I took and posted a photo but honestly, it was amazing!!!!!!!
Radishes, sugar-snap peas, tomatoes, red pointed peppers, chicory, pomegranate balsamic vinegar, olive oil with orange, goats yoghurt, coriander and a PieMinster Heidi-pie. It tasted absolutely wonderful!!!!!!!


3. Swimming:
I haven’t been for soo sooo long!!! It made me feel really relaxed, invigorated and it’s always fun to don a vintage-look polka dot swimsuit! I also love the fact that CBC enjoys the fun, silly games I do, like, see who can stay on the ledge the longest!



4. Healing- sometimes, you can be in receipt of a miracle! See previous post for why



5. Dressing like a mad old lady! I have been wearing the mad cat lady jumper, folk-fiddle t-shirt, and an old lady scarf-clip with a silk-scarf (vintage, via charity shop)


6. My snow-grips- they keep me upright and safe!!! If you've ever broken a limb slipping in the snow, you will know how it knocks your confidence in the snow, the worry of slipping- you can see from the footprints how these babies cut through the snow.


7. My church family. Old and young, I adore them- I really do- they are so kind, humble, funny, unique and caring. I sat in church on Thursday night and felt near to tears as I regarded these humble, loving people dancing in joy.



8. My new Tiffany Lamp. It prompted rearrangement of my front room to place it in a place of glory (and heck, not much would persuade me to move furniture!). I’ve wanted one for so long, ever since I saw Hale and Pace on a TV programme as a teenager where they had to try and create a catwalk collection- they used Tiffany Lamps as inspiration for their buttons in their collection. I’d never seen one before and I loved them. So pretty! CBC remembered this and bought me the perfect little one for Christmas.



9. Warm houses- I started to get a cold on Thursday and my house, as previously mentioned, has no central heating, so I have been without heat so it has been really comforting to be in CBC’s house with heating.




10. Warm hats and scarves:  So funny to get dressed up!  I love making people snigger and laugh on the Tube when I wear ridiculous hats and scarves! Oh by the way, this is a tea-cosy, not a hat! Though it would be fun to wear this on the Tube, just to see how people reacted! It's also fun to wear a tea-cosy on your hat. Essentially, that's what a beanie hat is anyway, isn't it?!



What has made you happy this week?

Wannabee Dalek?

 Long-lost relatives meeting for the first time perhaps?

And on the subject of amusing (but BRILLIANT) pictures - check out what Angela of Tracing Rainbows has been making...

Exterminate!

It's Tuesday and I am totally excited to be sharing this costume with you!
CBC had a robot party on Saturday night and I wanted to make a Dalek costume!  I've wanted to make a dalek costume for a while, well since I was 14, but especialy ever since I started wearing 50's dresses with big petticoats!  Because, that's like the shape of the bottom of dalek!   So when CBC, said he was having one, I knew it was my opportunity!
When I did a google search, I came across loads of girls with the same idea.  I've been checking out this blog called Dalek of the Day - there are tons of posted pictures of dalek outfits!

How did I put the costume together?

I went to town to find a suitable dress that went out at the bottom in either black, white, silver, gold .  I didn't find anything suitable in any charity shop so I finally found this white dress in Primark - a Skater-dress that was made of pretty sturdy material.  I then decided to be an Imperial dalek (from Sylvester McCoy era) but didn't manage to find suitable coloured material etc.

 Went to my family friend's house where she helped me create the dalek head grid bit as a sort of bandeau to go across the chest with Hobbycraft silver ribbon and silver material.  I braved the sewing machine and used poppers so it can be washed easily and used on other dress if needed.

 Matt-silver Christmas baubles found in Poundland with the aid of local Poundshop safety pins pinned to the inside of my skirt, formed the Dalek baubles. Old white ballet tights of my Mum's.



 Silver sequinned ballet pumps for £5 from a local  independent shoe shop.

 £1.50 silver belt from charity-shop

Added a black skirt of slightly longer length to make the black dalek base

Head dress consisted of a thin metal silver headband that had lost it's decoration from Primark which I got them to reduce to 50p for the lost gem.  I then stuck two adhesive LED spotlights (also Poundland)  to the top of the headband (forgot batteries!)

Dalek gun= Local poundshop whisk
Dalek er- plunger = Local poundshop plunger

and TAH DAH, we have party dalek





CBC put a huge amount of effort into the food AND decorations.

All around the house, he compiled a 'family photo  gallery' of robots.

 Each one had its own recycled photo frame, crafted from old cardboard boxes.   Who is this?

 Love this one! Who?

 And this?

 And this?

 R2D2 -phew, one I know!

 Clever use of an Old Dyson box for this one...

 Short circuit!  Though Johnny 5 is alive!

 ?

 From Futurama!

 K9!

 My grandfather...

 Here's the bulk of the food.  CBC is a great cook!  He also bought amazing little cakes from a French patisserie

 The drinks are guarded by Daleks!

 Check out the DJ's (one of the guests) t-shirt.  It's a SOund-sensitive t-shirt! With tumble-drier arms!

Christmas lights- tasteful ones!

Oh, and what about CBC's costume I hear you ask?  He decided he wanted to be the Moonlander module.

His costume is WAY more impressive than mine!  He made it all himself!

And here we are together!  Heinous USA pants courtesy of Primark!

Ceiling decorations were partly my idea.  Disco balls and nuts and bolts bunting!
Funky lightbulb that changes colour!

Foam latters on the TV.  I tried to make into a necklace, but they were too fiddly! (Thanks to T for the letters!)

It was great fun! I eventually got there after a concert in London and enjoyed it!

Oh, but one word of advice.  Never fall asleep on an arm chair when there are girl-daleks around...

Since CBC looks a little like a cross between Matt Smith and David Tennant (at least I think so)- DESTROY THE DOCTOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am linking up to the lovely Annie the Felt Fairy's Make a month with this since I actually did some sewing! Yay,a make that isn't a card!

Linking up to Lakota's Tah Dah Tuesday whenever she does her next one! Boo hoo! I can pretend this is what I wore today!

Also linking up to Patti's Visible Monday (a little late!) because this is the most visible thing I have worn in a long time!!!!