A cloche with a hair cut to match

Claire Justine recently posted a brilliant post where she documented her hair cuts over the last 5 years. I was truly amazed and impressed at the sheer range of different styles she had had. Me,not so. I fluctate between 2 hairstyles and the growth between these and have done for at least 13 years or so, if not my whole life. Bob with feathered ends and then long. I had an awful haircut once when I was 14 which involved my Mum, some wine, a pair of hairdressing scissors, me putting my head wonkily and so I am wary of trying anything new.

On Friday, I decided that I needed to get my hair cut as the last time it was chopped was July.  I've been known to go over a year without a trim or anything and was feeling a bit shabby.

I went to the salon in my old home town which I have been frequenting since I was about 14 and had it chopped.  It feels wonderful, light and bouncy and I discovered the benefit of getting my haircut in the midwinter- suddenly, my cloche hats look like they are supposed to!!



Indulge me!! I was trying to capture a picture of the hat I wore to church this morning and decided to go with the silliness.

This particular cloche was a very lucky find in a charity shop a little while ago. Brand new with tags for £3.50 from some Italian name, I liked the sparkly feature star.  I kept the labels on for a while because I felt guilty about buying a black cloche hat when I already had one (with feathers and a ribbon) but somehow didn't find anyone to give it to (didn't want to send it in case it got squashed!) and so decided to give it its debut with the new hair cut.



I've had a fair bit of luck with hats in Charity-shops over the years and so I thought I'd say this to you.
If you like charity-shopping but never see a hat you like, try it on. Honestly, some hats look different on the mannequin but on you, they suddenly come alive.  Same with any hat shopping, just try it. So many people have told me hats don't suit them but you just have to try them.  Change the angle of the hat, wear it at a rakish or jaunty angle and all of a sudden, it takes on its true character.  Nobody really bats an eyelid when I wear them now, because they are used to them. Except when I wear my cossack hat, but you know, that's understandable.  Take a tip from the beautiful Style Crone, Judith, founder and host of Hat Attack.  Judith has a whole host of wonderful hats that become her so beautifully.  She has all different styles.

My weekend hasn't quite worked out the way it was meant to. We didn't end up being in the places we were supposed to at the right times, but it was still a good weekend on the whole. I have a bit of a rotten cough and co but life is good, no complaints.
xxx


Linking with:








and 52 Pick me up with Spy girl


Hat Attack with Style Crone
Creative Mondays with Claire Justine
Magpie Mondays with Liz Burton
52 Pick me with with Anne,  Spy girl

Of lurid outfits, of manor houses, of charity shop bags and of crumble

Sometimes, I just want to bung everything into one blog post and be done with it!  I have a little to say about something, but it seems a little insubstantial to merit an entire blogpost!  Yes, I could keep it short and sweet and quick to read (and I'd probably have more readers!) but I quite like a patchwork of items in a post, or a miscellany!  So here, I shall include, Magpie Monday find, Style imitating art, Visible Monday, cooking, visits to Georgian manors and free perfume! (like any good newsreport, I have summed up the main features before the detailed report)


First up, is this week's Style imitating art challenge.   Jess chose a painting called The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer- the medium is oil on canvas, c.1658.  Johannes is a really nice name.  If I had a boy anything (cat, fish, gerbil), I'd call him Johannes! If you check back on Tuesday, there'll be a post showing what everyone wore for this challenge!  I was struck by all the different shades of this- the bright blue over-skirt, the red skirt proper, the mustard bodice and the greensleeves (and white hat!)

Therefore, I put together the following

to comprise those elements

The blue skirt is actually a dress, I last wore here,
dressed up as supergirl (the colour looks WEIRD inside)- I'm doing that remix-thingamijig, where you wear a dress as a skirt! And a vintage mustard blouse, greeny cardie (tucked in), white beret and claret tights (which look black/purple here!) . I have bright red tights but couldn't find them! Just as well, as I am very bright!  As a little touch, I added a doll's jug as a pendant to get in with her actions! I bought the doll's set ages ago to make teacup earrings and the jug has been biding it's time for an Alice outfit!

Linking up to:
the gorgeous Patti's Visible Monday



It's Magpie Monday with Liz Burton tomorrow.  I've found two nice charity shop items this week (one in Essex, one in Ely).  One is a dress (which is too cold to wear now!) and the other is this bag.  I found myself really taken with its yellow and white stripes. It's a good size- not too big, not too small (like Goldilocks, I prefer things on the middle ground) and it put me in mind of the beautiful beach-huts that I saw in Southwold. I do struggle with bags- straps always seem to dig into shoulders, or it is too small or big, or too boring (my current brown handbag!).. PLus it's a nice satchelly shape!

 Do go and find out what other people found this week!


Next, on the Kezzie news, we have Valentines Mansion. I went to meet a friend for lunch at Valentines Mansion, where I had my wedding reception.  They have an excellent gardener's cafe and we ate our lunch in the beautiful Kitchen garden since the sun shone (though it was very nippy!)


We had a lovely catchup and took a quick walk around the mansion and I felt all nostalgic as I looked at it all and remembered last summer...





I wore several of last Monday's Magpie items- the coat, beret, bow brooch and grey lacy top.

Linking with Renae's Fashion Item Friday. DO link up with this lovely lady!


As we walked to the edge of the park, we saw about 5 squirrels but I managed to capture a pic of this fellow. Isn't he stocky?!?!?! Someone clearly ate all the nuts!


We went back to the town centre and I had a look in Debenhams and TK Maxx and was browsing the sale
racks when an assistant pounced on me and said, "Would you not like to help Help the Heroes?", brandishing a bucket. I was a bit  startled to say the least and mortifyingly, what came out my mouth was, "Would I NOT want to help?" in an amused voice, somehow my mental correcting of her question came out my mouth.  She smiled and repeated it and I willingly put some money in the bucket.  At this point, she handed me a little bundle of perfume samples.  I said, no thanks, but she said to keep them anyway.  Quite nice really but I didn't actually want anything for putting the money in.


Finally,we have crumble.

CBC and I bought some rhubarb a couple of weeks ago and I said I'd make a crumble. He said I'd let it moulder in the fridge.  SO last night, I made it alongside a pastabake. I hadn't bothered to buy any ingredients, hoping I'd have it in the cupboard.  I searched online and found a BBC Food one which asked for Self-raising flour (why?), I hadn't got any, so I searched again and came up trumps with Waitrose whose simple recipe enabled me to use up some January 2012 dated organic flour, butter, caster sugar and rhubarb.  The only trouble was, it asked for 500g of rhubarb and I only had 340g so I ratio-ed all the quantities down to 68% and had fun weighing such odd quantities on my non-digital scales!
Sufficed to say it was a delicious success and better still, we have more left for tonight!



And that's all from the 6 o'clock news on KezzieAG.

Hope to hear from you soon!

xx

Magpie Saturday: Two for joy

So, I really alluded to having found a few items when charity-shopping including my lovely Monsoon black swing coat with red piping.  Several people said they'd like to see what I got.  SO I finally took some photos. AND, naughtily, I happened to be taking a big bag of stuff to our local high street charity shops yesterday so ended up buying a few items which I had had on my charity shop wishlist! Result.

Last week, I found:

• The black and red coat Monsoon coat as mentioned:

• A gorgeous grey lace-trimmed, short-sleeved top.  I loved the delicate lace pattern and well worth it.
• A cute little black, grey and blue wool skirt.  Fun for school or play.
• I have read most of Alexandra Potter's books (first read- Me and Mr Darcy- you can see why I first starting reading her) and so I was pleasantly surprised to find You're the one I don't want.

This week, I had a couple of items I wanted:

• I mentioned to the lovely Curtise, whose blog I have recently discovered and started following most ardently, that I have been trying to give my hats a little makeover, by adding brooches or pins to give them a bit of fun.  Curtise had featured two lovely berets with pretty embellishments on them and I thought how I'd like a rhinestone bow brooch to add to my berets.  Imagine, my delight when in one of the shops, I found a really pretty, brand-new one and also a gorgeous blue, aurora borealis style circle brooch which will look cute, hopefully.  There were a few other nice brooches, but I just stuck to the two.
• As you can see, I also found a gorgeous pair of diamante earrings.  I presume they are at least 20 years old, due to the screw-function for the earring, but I may be wrong. Vix (fount of all dating vintage knowledge), any suggestions?

• You know I love my hats and in particular, berets. I have been wishing I had bought a grey beret a while ago, when I had bought my black one in H&M, so happily found one for £2.  I love little belts too, and so seeing this rainbow glittery belt for 25p was a non-brainer.  Hope it fits me and isn't just for 12-year old girls given the label!

Then two books that pleased me:

• In a previous charity-shop, look what I found post, I mentioned buying Checkmate by Malorie Blackman. Double Cross is the next book in the series which I wanted. Also a book by Beverly Naidoo who wrote Journey to Jo'burg.   I loved studying this book in Year 7, so I am interested to read it but the main reason I bought it was for my year 6 work colleague who is studying Journey to Jo'burg with her kids so I know she'd really like to read this book and perhaps the kids too.

• The final item, was this little black shift dress.  Recently, I asked advice for how to wear my Orla Keilly x Uniglo shirt and Ang and Sophie suggested wearing it under 60's style v-neck dress or pinafore, respectively.  I didn't quite find either of those, but this little black shift made me think of both of their ideas. I wore it for church today with my Orla Keilly heat-tech turtle neck, navy-blue ancient school tights (yep, my mum bought these for me when I was 15!!!), and accessories to try and achieve a vaguely-tenuous 60's look that Ang suggested. It was glorious walking to church in the sunshine and I even took off my Monsoon coat and just wore the above,it was so pleasant.  Thank God for a bit of sunshine!

Didn't I do well!!!!
Have you found any charity-shop bargains recently? I love reading posts like that, so share if you do.  And if you like reading them, head across to Magpie Monday with Liz Burton as everyone is linking up posts like these!

Linking to:


Magpie Monday

What I wore to church

Rainbows raced around the room when he danced with me.

With the weather being SOOOO cold and my having to walk an hour a day (to and from work combined), a hat is an essential and I have enjoyed wearing my way through some of my winter hat collection over the last month. This pearl beret (H&M) is one of my favourites- pretty and warm! But, the main feature today is,  I found this dress in a charity shop recently and was immensely pleased as how often do you find an almost maxi knitted dress AND in rainbow stripes!!?  Admittedly, it's a bit more skimming of the body than I am used to or comfortable with- because I have a very small top-half, anything fitted to the lower half does look not so flattering as it might do on someone with a more even body, compared to Mrs Pearshaped here. Not complaining about my size, shape in the slightest, but I do know what does or doesn't suit my shape, hence why I avoid pencil skirts (Quote my Mum in Oasis when I was 17: "That skirt shape does nothing for you."  She was right- it looked vile!).  The kids always love it when I wear anything brightly coloured- the girls always say 'Miss you look pretty today'! Awwwww!  BUT, despite its unusual shape for me, I adore the stripes and knitted happiness of it!  Shame these photos don't reveal its Joseph-and-his-technicolour-dreamcoat vibrance but since I was at school till 6.30 that day, this was the best I could do!


{sorry, I feel all I have done recently is moan about my various ailments. Tell me to shut up gladly but I seem to have caught everything since Jan the 1st!!) Considering how ill I felt on Friday night and Saturday morning with tonsils that felt like they were trying to escape down my throat- swallowing has a 3 second delay, I have been here, there and everywhere today and actually it's been quite good and helped!  We started off the day going swimming and as soon as I was in that humid swimming environment, I felt a lot better, nose was clearer and throat and tonsils calmed down. I swam about 30 lengths non-stop (but slowly! I am a sllllloooooow, incompetent swimmer though I have stamina!) until CBC got out.  Bizarrely, as I showered, I listened to the same two children in the next shower cubicle to me that I had heard three weeks before:

"KAAAAAAAAAAAAAI, put your head under the shower. KAI, stop it.  Mum, he wont put his head under the shower! KAI, stop it!"  

Kai made all sorts of comments, crumblings and screams all through this. The whole torrid affair lasted the length of my shower and before and after it! Kai sounds a bit of a pest!

After we changed, we ate a quick teacake in the cafe before heading towards the town near where my Mum lives to Le Moulin, the French Patisserie that made our wedding cake- to meet her for lunch.   Just before we reached the Patisserie, CBC made up a song about our house being cluttered with all my stuff, so to punish him*, I dived into the St Francis Hospice charity shop whilst he went to look for a cashpoint.  Contemplated a pinafore but bought nothing in there....
In the patisserie, we were asked the same tired old question that people seem to think is socially acceptable once you are married: "Are you not pregnant yet?" (The real answer I want to give is: "No! Bog off and leave me alone!") and once that was politely deflected, we met my Mum and ate olive, cheese baguette-bake things, Praline mousse cake and tea.

At this point, CBC declared a wish to visit the Music shop to search for some theory books for school and I rejoiced, knowing he'd spend AAAAGES in there which meant I could have a lovely pootle round the myriad charity shops in that town!

I actually only bought things in the first shop which I went into with my Mum (before she got the bus home) and I got some really nice items I was happy with (to be shared in future post once photos done!) before getting caught in mad freak sudden hurricane-style downpour! It vanished as quickly as it came and left a whole highstreet of wide-eyed, shell-shocked individuals!

Meeting CBC, on a whim, we decided to drive over to my Dad's to go and pick up the suit-jacket my little sister used her staff-discount to get for him.  They are super, super organised and need weeks notice for a visit so we have taken to suddenly springing ourselves on them with a quick phone call! They are very accommodating, surprisingly!  It was lovely to see him and my stepmum and we had a nice cup of tea and chat about ISAs (strange and confusing things!) before heading homewards.

Back in Essex, we nipped home and grabbed stuff to go to Waitrose to get shopping and surprisingly for once, didn't have a supermarket tiff!!!

Came home and CBC cooked Spaghetti bolognaise and I blognaised (see what I did there?!) after eating it!!

Hope that all is well with you. xxx

Linking with these lovelies:


Liz Burton's Magpie Monday with my stripy charity shop purchase
Patti's Visible Monday with my lovely bright dress

Claire Justine's Creative Monday


*Actually was totally going to go in anyway.  But it was nice to have an excuse that wasn't just: "But I want to!" I'm not sure he believed me.