TARDIS Tuesday -Demons of the Punjab Yasmin Khan and a nostalgia trip!

 Almost five years ago, it was my 40th Birthday in Lockdown because of Covid 19 and many of my dear blogger friends agreed to dress up as Doctor Who characters for my online birthday party which was utterly wonderful as I could not have a real life celebration! It's one of my favourite posts ever.  Do go and have a look at the post if you weren't around then or even go and have a look for nostalgia's sake if you WERE around!  You can find it here! I'm sad that some of my besties don't blog anymore!

This week, I am returning to the outfit worn in that post. I CANNOT believe I haven't posted it subsequently in the 5 intervening years. I'm turning 45 in the next month. Hmmm, enough said about that!

Let's have a look at the outfit inspiration in question. It was worn by character, Yasmin Khan, portrayed by Mandip Gill in a historical episode called Demons of the Punjab.

Image borrowed from the Doctor Who Companion

Image borrowed from Blogtor Who

Image borrowed from the
Ultimate Guide to the Fashion of Doctor Who

Image borrowed from 
My Shiny Toy Robots

I wore this last Tuesday for work at school though I took the photos on Sunday to try and exploit the light! I was fed up of not having much TARDIS Tuesday as I couldn't take any good photos so some forward prep was necessary.

I received several compliments for this outfit. It makes me think of aubergines!

The jumper AND blazer come from Whistles originally. This blazer was always elusive to find so I was pleased to find it before my 40th birthday.  The combination of glittery purple merino wool sweater with glitter and this thick cotton waffle blazer was deliciously cosy for a cold day.

I wore some black ASOS trousers which are useful but I realise I've got a better pair of trousers to match for future reference.

Notice my trainers.  These belong to CBC.  He bought them in Cornwall in Sainsbury's a couple of years ago when we were there on holiday.  He soon decided he didn't like them and hasn't worn them again. I tried them on and I find them very comfortable! I was looking for my Adidas trainers in the cupboard and found these instead which are more of a match for Yaz's one.

The final touches were my 40th birthday present from my Dad and Stepmum, this beautiful Posy loop necklace from Alex Monroe with daisies and bees, two of my favourite things.

It's so nice to feature a Yaz outfit without a leather jacket! Perhaps next time I feature it, I might even get my Mum to imitate the hairstyle!

Hope all is well with you!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Martha Jones in the Lazarus Experiment

Hello there!

I hope this blog post finds you well today.  Are you happy? 

For TARDIS Tuesday today, I  am sharing another dressy look after last week's glamorous sequinned evening gown!  Thank you for the kind feedback on it! Thank you Mummy too for visiting!

Let's have a look at this week's look!

This is a smart look worn by 10th Doctor companion, Martha Jones, a medical student. Most of her looks are definitely not my thing, a bit like her predecessor, Rose Tyler.  However, the look featured today was very much up my street!

https://www.shopyourtv.com/doctor-who-season-3-episode-6-marthas-purple-dress/

https://badwolfcloset.tumblr.com/post/62267819512/martha-jones-series-3-episode-6-the-lazarus

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1000257/

Worn in an episode entitled, The Lazarus Experiment, it featured a beautiful plum silk dress from Ted Baker. She paired it with plum-coloured shoes, a necklace and a black crocheted, slightly sparkly headband.

This dress is so pretty and is very much me. I used to own a lovely plum silk v-neck dress which I wore for my friend Tamsin's wedding. I was really sad when it stopped fitting me.  In addition, I used to own a Ted Baker dress which was very similar but in a turquoise/teal which also stopped fitting me.

I knew this one would be good because it has a fitted top and a looser bottom half which works well for my pear-shape.

Here are some photos I took.

Ted Baker made several plum silk dresses which are quite similar to this and finding the correct one wasn't something I did really very much but I did find one for £12 on Vinted a while back. It feels really comfortable- perhaps a bit bigger than necessarily but it works.

I had some better shoes (Clara's flapper shoes) to wear but my feet were really swollen and refusing to get into them so I wore my comfortable Somerset Clarks t-bar shoes (charity shopped)

I 

Happily, I realised I had a black-crocheted headband I hadn't worn for a while so I located it. I wore a lovely Whitby Jet necklace my Mum was given when she left a job which is not her style

It's been a really busy week- 

Last week, I had a Monday performance at CBC's school playing viola which I didn't get home from until 11pm.

Tuesday, I had an Orchestra of the City rehearsal - I didn't get home till around 11pm.

Wednesday, we had Exhibition Evening at School and then a leaving dinner for a colleague- didn't get home until 10.30pm

Thursday, I had a Gamelan rehearsal- didn't get home until 10.30pm.

Friday- I had an Orchestra of the City concert of Mahler's 5th Symphony. It was a wonderful concert and SUCH a full audience at St Andrew's church, Holborn. But I didn't get home until around midnight!

Saturday, I was supposed to be travelling to East Finchley for the Anglo-Indonesian society picnic at the Indonesian Ambassador's residence but because of the forecast strong winds and rain, it was cancelled. I was incredibly grateful that this was the case as I was INCREDIBLY tired after the last week's late night.  In addition, CBC's weekend away in the New Forest for Silver Duke of Edinburgh award was cancelled so it meant I didn't have to leave him all alone. I made us eggs on toast with homegrown perpetual spinach and then I spent most of the day, until 9pm, at home. I did washing, composting, picking fruit, tidying and quite a large amount of time using Sibelius music software to make an arrangement AND to make a new arrangement of a Gamelan piece I wrote at university for flute quartet. I really enjoyed this as I haven't done this for a while.

We headed out to dinner at 9pm at our favourite Thai restaurant which was lovely.

When I got back, I did some more work on Sibelius and stupidly headed to bed at 2am!

I got up at 8am. CBC had woken up at 6am and gone off to catch the train to London to join in with the London to Southend cycle race.

I headed to church at 8.45am on my bike and played flute. It was a lovely service. I came home with a yellow courgette. Lots of people at church share their surplus vegetables from their allotments!

CBC came home and then we headed over to my Mum's to give her her birthday presents. It was really great to see her.

We headed back and now it's onto another week which absolutely NO spare evenings and many late nights!

Only one week of school left!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Romana's outfit from The Androids of Tara

Today in TARDIS Tuesday, I am looking to Classic Who companion, Romana again but this time, her first version played by the beautiful Mary Tamm.  Mary Tamm was only the Doctor's companion for 6 stories- the overarching Key to Time set of 6 stories.  I loved her as a teenager!


And here you can see her and myself!

In the episode entitled, The Androids of Tara which is basically a rip off of the Prisoner of Zenda, Romana discovers she is the spitting image of Princess Strella.

Romana wears a very regal but unusual outfit comprising of a Purple velvet coat with a high military collar with extra satin lapels with green piping.  She wears a hat with a green waist band, high brown boos and some green satin trousers.

All the items I wore were in my wardrobe anyway so this was really a Closet cosplay as I call them.

My long-standing purple Debenhams coat with green leggings and knee-high boots.

My charity-shopped purple hat was adorned with a green pair of tights!

What do you think?

Not bad for a rummage in my wardrobe!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Donna Noble in the Fires of Pompeii

Hello there!

Greetings on this fine day.   Today's TARDIS Tuesday is a departure for me from the usual characters I have dressed up as! I THINK this may be a first attempt at a Donna Noble.  This character was played by the wonderful Catherine Tate and she was brilliant companion who should have been in the series longer than just one series!

The outfit I chose as my inspiration was her Roman outfit from The Fires of Pompeii in which the Doctor and Donna turn up in Pompeii on, yes, you've guessed it, Volcano day!  Interestingly enough, the future companion, Amy Pond-actress Karen Gillan AND 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi both featured in this episode.  It was a beautiful emotional and interesting story, well worth a watch for the excellent acting from Catherine Tate.

I've thought about this outfit for ages and thought, "Oh yes, I could do a version of that!" for years. This episode aired 10 years ago almost to the day!

Image borrowed from This Pinterest but ultimately belongs to the BBC

Here it is:  Long purple dress with gold braiding, golden Roman gladiator sandals, golden strand earrings and a metallic bauble necklace and a gold bracelet.

At the end of a hot day, I contemplated my possible choices for TARDIS Tuesday and this one seemed to be one of the more Summer-appropriate choices that didn't involve endless searching for items or items that I didn't really have something appropriate to match...or so I thought...

And here I am/

This handmade, vintage dress was charity-shopped in 2014 and worn on this blog here.  I was thinner then and didn't have to hold my hands over my stomach to disguise a pot-belly!

 Doesn't it have a lovely back to it!

 The dress was easy to locate- finding the appropriate items proved more problematic. The earrings were in the LAST box I looked in! I'd all but given up on the sandals until I had a brave wave that all my summer shoes were in an old suitcase!

The sandals And the earrings were both purchased from Primark around about 7 years ago when I played the part of Luciana in The Boys from Syracuse at Music Camp and needed some Grecian accessories- they have been subsequently used everytime I needed to dress up Greek!

Image belongs to the BBC and is taken from their website.

You can see that Donna is sporting a small metallic bauble and you can see the gold detail on the bodice.

I used a gold glittery belt tied high up to emulate the gold braiding and the necklace I achieved by using a small green metallic bauble earring I was given as a present and threading a chain through the loop! If you look close, you can see an earring back attached to it!

Look for the fish hook!

This is a costume that I could wear for World Book Day if I wanted to emulate a Roman character I am sure so it is very versatile and nothing new was purchased for it! I do like, as a teacher who has to dress up, to keep items like this in my wardrobe, even if I don't wear them very often!

What do you think?

Have a little watch of this extract from the episode!

Love Kezzie x

Advent Day 7- The hyena, the Christmas tree and the sneaky 70's outfit!

Hello there!

Today's Advent picture is of our Christmas tree!!! CBC was away this weekend in the dreadful floods up north - it took him some 12 hours to reach Northumberland but luckily he made it there ok and came back, arriving with a real Christmas tree and wreath!

It was rather exciting to dress it with our ramshackle assortment of decorations, many of which just generally hang around our house! We didn't put a Christmas tree up last year, so it was exciting to do it this time, particularly as I'd spent most of the weekend cleaning and tidying the house!

 I thought I'd show you a close up of one decoration: the er, most Christmassy animal, the hyena.  This decoration holds some memories for us. When we got married, we planned a treasure hunt around the grounds at Valentines Mansion for our guests.  Many of the clues on the sheet were play on words to get to the location to find a letter but the first clue was this Hyena. The clue was- this is the noise I make!  Guest were given maps of the grounds and hopefully realised they were looking for the ha-ha to find the first clue!  He ended up on our Christmas tree the first year we were married as we didn't really have any decorations and just searched around the house for things to put on it. We've built up a few more!  It was time to Christen the Faberge style eggs which we found at my Grandad's house but obviously didn't use last year!Everyone else has stacks of decorations so didn't want these but I knew we had a decoration deficit so snagged them!

CBC being away, meant I took advantage to wear this 1970's vintage dress.  He doesn't really like it at all, it looks a bit matrony and the first time I wore it, we were going up to London to meet some of his hip friends and of course, I dressed eccentrically just for that reason (not, but that's what I'm sure he thought! Was pure coincidence!)

I teamed it with my Mum's 1969 navy felt floppy hat and a different belt and brooch which you can see tomorrow!

I couldn't believe how mild it was yesterday! I wrapped warmly in this for the Christmas fair with a polo neck underneath, thick tights and boots and roasted most of the day!

Hope all is well with you.

Kezzie xx

Linking with:

Gorgeous Patti with Visible Monday
Judith, the fabulous Style Crone at Hat Attack

Presenting Miss Perpugilliam Brown

I was a child of the 80's.  My first Doctor (Who obviously! Do you think this is some kind of hypochondriac blog!?) was Colin Baker, the 6th incarnation of the Doctor.  One of my earliest memories of TV was the episode in which his long-suffering companion, Peri, short of Perpugilliam Brown is killed.  I was devastated! I loved Peri.  I have vivid memories of the scene in which she was operated on by the evil Doctor Crozier so her mind was taken over by the horrid Kiv and when King Ycarnos seemingly gunned her down.  Luckily, all was not what it seemed in Mindwarp part 8 of 'A Trial of a timelord'.  Incidentally, this was the first Doctor Who video I was given as a teenager. If you want to see a summary of the episode, click here. Anyway, in her final outing, Peri, who was renowned for wearing rather revealing outfits, actually wore something a little more covering, in the form of a purply patterned tunic and kimono.

Image borrowed from https://michaelnixon.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/1986-mindwarp/

Image borrowed from http://www.ew.com/

The look has a decidedly hippy-vibe to it.

As always, TARDIS Tuesday is an interpretation of something from Doctor Who, rather than having to be an exact cosplay (much as I love those!) so I am demonstrating here, with a bit of context and a certain degree of tenuous rhetoric, you can link an outfit to Doctor Who that you might not otherwise realise was inspired as such.




I bought a delightful paisley and floral purple tunic in a charity shop in Ipswich with 2 blogging friends (ahrgh, I WILL blog about that soon!) and it suggested to me that it had a Peri Mindwarp vibe to it.



Of course, it was a floral garland kind of day, so I matched that in too. Peri wore some sort of purple beaded headband in another episode which I can't find the reference for right now.

Yes, I know that it isn't really THAT Peri-ish! But you know, I was inspired!


Now it's your turn. Been at the fancy dress box again and worn a Panama, fez or Fedora, been wearing a cricket jumper, stripy scarf or been at Clara's Topshop collection!? Or perhaps you've sported some TARDIS blue in your outfit post. Come and join Maricel, TARDIS Tuesday founder and me, her humble assistant (rather like the Doctor and his companion! Ha, that makes me Clara!)
with TARDIS Tuesday.

An InLinkz Link-up

70's Edwardian Matron

I discovered a new vintage shop not too far from where I live. It's called Debbie does Vintage and you can find her Facebook page here.     Debbie is such a nice person, really kind, approachable and down to earth so it was great to have a chat with her and root through all the delicious vintage clothing and accessories at reasonable prices and be able to try them on!




I ended up buying two dresses, the one featured here and one I am probably wearing for a wedding in May. This one, which I believe is a 70's does Edwardian (but feel free to correct me Vix or Curtise)
is super comfortable and CBC laughed out loud and groaned simultaneously when I bounced down the stairs wearing this when we were off to meet his glam, trendy London friend for lunch.

Edwardian matron? Oh well, it made a statement. Not sure the people in my local town who are a mixture of lovely local down-to-earth types and orange TOWIE-fans were ready for it!



I meant to wear this hat (charity-shopped brand new LONG ago) but forgot it which was annoying as it was uber windy! Teamed it with vintage Mum belt and Next boots and that was that (oh and THE most irritating black tights ever. I know I must have looked SO unglamorous hoiking them up as we walked around Spitalfields. But it was either saggy tights or undignified pulling!



Had a rather productive day today. Today was my first full day back from staying in Sussex with a dear friend AND I had a fab blogger meet-up on Monday which I need to tell you all about...
My Mum and I headed over to my Grandad's old house, which could be one of the last times before it sells. So bittersweet to be there.  I still have regrets and sadness over my dear Grandad and I just wish I could call him and talk to him.  We walked in the garden and took some cuttings or camelias and saw the start of the blue bells and then headed back home. After some cups of tea, Mum and I headed into the garden where we repotted some raspberries and strawberries and my fig tree and then I attacked the evil brambles that have taken over one side of the garden and did a huge and appalling topiary job on our (formerly) pretty bush.  I was out there a good 3 hours.  After drinking more tea (Mum headed off a while back), I then went through the shed looking for one craft item which I could not find anywhere. So frustrating. Of course I found the flower punch I was looking for last week and I expect I'll find the Shrink plastic next week.  I've headed back inside and made somethings.  CBC came home from work (poor dear was back this week) and has fallen asleep on the sheepskin rug and is snoring very loudly. Keeping it real here ladies and gentlemen.  He suggested we go out for dinner. So I shall have to wake him.

Sending you all the best of wishes.

xx

Linking to Visible Monday with Patti

Hearts and flowers

I'm sorry, I really don't have anything interesting to say. I've felt a bit like that this week-hence the fact you got two outfit posts in close together and then another one. I like to keep things varied and I like posting daily but I'm not feeling the book review, craft post needs to come after Mothers Day, Blog love post doesn't feel finished, one draft still not got the other part done,  What is it? done yesterday, no particular school anecdotes; two restaurant write ups which I have no desire to finish, photos of cooking on camera can't be bothered to upload them and so on. Am I having a day of blogging ennui? Who knows!  Anyway, thus what follows from here on was a draft post which I have preceded with what seems a bit of a self-indulgent blog moan. It wasn't intentional, I just was feeling I didn't like posting ANOTHER outfit. But it's the most written post so here we go:



A while back when it was my birthday weekend, we went out to a dinner party at a friend's house. She lives in Eltham and she made an amazing feast having 3 courses and the main being a Chinese feast of at least 8 dishes (she is of Chinese origin)! I had worn my 1st Debenhams January sale purchase the day before so I decided to wear the other the next day. I had seen those coord dresses around and thought they were great but not really been wanting to shell out money for one. So, seeing one in the H by Henry Holland 70% off sale rack (with voucher in bag), I was rather chuffed. I thought it a really unusual and striking pattern and I liked the way it looked like a dress and top. What do you think of coords? I decided to add my pewter Hush Puppies shoes- these were the first high-heeled shoes I'd ever bought as an adult that looked high  after forgetting black shoes for a concert in a church (Oh look, another shoe anecdote!) and borrowed a girl's size 8 hig-heeled Aldo court shoes (I couldn't believe she shared my size!), discovering some heels WERE comfortable and hunting for some.They are decidedly comfy for heels. I tried to add my Crown and glory heart fascinator.
 

 I say tried. I seem to have an issue getting combs to stay in my hair! Or putting them in anywhere that looks right. Do I have an odd-shaped head??? This came in February's Glitterati box and whilst I love it, it's not exactly every day wear. Nor am I remotely skilled at getting it to stay in my hair. I finally got it to stay in and then went out into the wind. It refused to go back in after I'd wrestled it out of my hair. It really was windy- I thought I'd share the aborted attempts at Fascinator closeups for your amusement- it really wasn't happening was it. And then I discovered in the top right picture, that my top made a great parachute in the wind!


Thanks for your lovely kind comments and general being fabulous! You lot are the best!

xx

Buy 1 Doctor Who character, get another one free (with added lions.)

I haven't joined in with the Twobirds Inspiration Monday for ages and I felt really sad about that- I like to support my friends' link-ups (especially the Birds, who have been loyal friends for several years now) as well as being a great place to meet other bloggers!  The last couple of looks have not being always doable for me, or I've forgotten to save the image and then I've forgotten, but I made a point of saving this photo last week, knowing I could definitely do this look in my own way.




 I also thought how I could tie it in with TARDIS Tuesday with Maricel at My Closet Catalogue as the dress is definitely very Clara-ish, I'd been planning a Cosplay involving my Tartan dress

Image borrowed from the Fashion of Doctor Who

Obviously, I don't have the right colours- I WAS planning to wear my black short-sleeved shirt underneath it but it was SO cold on Sunday that I didn't dare do bare sleeves so substituted a polo-neck top (in navy though, so the colours are right...)


Need to get the Clara-esque pose right- she stands with her legs awfully far apart,don't you think? I think I'd feel a bit silly doing that!

FYI, none of the items I'm wearing are current (all at least 3-6 years old) but I'll share anyway, the coat is Debenhams petite, the top and boots- M&S, leggings Primark and the dress- thrifted/charity-shopped.





Well, anyway, I thought I was all set for TARDIS Tuesday but by the time I'd taken the photos, gone into the shed to find craft-supplies, made a cymbal resonate for 10 seconds by screaming at finding a LARGE spider in a box and done a few other things, the weather had totally changed from the delightfully sunny impression above to DOOM, GLOOM and rain, clouds and wind! Therefore, I deemed it prudent to bundle up all nice and warm for heading off to our town's Christmas fair-the whole high street is closed off to traffic and it turns into a street market- the Rotary club organise it and I think they do a brilliant job!  Then I wandered along in the fake snow flying around, looking all Tom Baker-esque!  I've posted the coat and scarf together before when I dressed up as Tom Baker for Melanie Follybird's Doctor Who Style inspiration aaaaages ago


The town fair was great!  We had a good wander around and looked at lots of stalls.  We bought a few things (I bought CBC a Christmas present- he ALMOST bought me one but I was indecisive over it!), We ate a fair few thingsI ate a foot long Bratwurst (sadly no photos!), we listened to some rock n roll Christmas music and debated whether to impromptually lindy-hop (we didn't) and we went and sang some carols in the church on the High Street, though I'd missed my church's slot to lead.  I do love that church! It's right at the centre of the High Street, where it should be and it is the Hub for Street pastors in the evenings!

I thought I'd share a flavour of the fair by posting a few photos here- enjoy!


Everyone in the community is there.

Lots of things to eat.

Carols in the church all day- mince pies and tea too!

Ducks a plenty! We bought my Mum a wooden one last year.

Delicious leather books!

He's making a list and checking it twice.

Duck!

Pie!

Dislike the spelling (CHRISTmas) but the craftsman ship is good!

Ahh, reminds us of our trip on Beauty!

Tinsel backdrop to Rock 'n' roll!

SUCH a treat to see a beautiful sky!

3 lions on the roof

Loving some of the Street Pastors dressed up!


xxx

Have you visited any Christmas markets or fairs? Does your community put on an event?

Thank you for your nice comments recently.

Lizzie, thank you SO much for all your comments- I really wish I could reply but please be assured I read all your posts and wish I could respond to them! Oh and Alexander McCall Smith is splendid!

Linking up with
Inspiration Monday Two birds boutique


Creative Mondays with Claire Justine

TARDIS Tuesday with Maricel