TARDIS Tuesday - Peri Brown's Swan song outfit- Mindwarp

For TARDIS Tuesday today, I thought I'd return to 80's companion, Peri Brown for her outfit worn in her swansong story- Mindwarp which was part of A Trial of a Timelord.

Let's have a look at it:

https://archivetvmusings.blog/2014/10/26/now-i-am-she-alive-within-this-oh-so-wonderful-wonderful-frame-doctor-who-the-trial-of-a-time-lord-mindwarp/

https://www.herocollector.com/en-us/Article/doctor-who-omega-returns 

https://chancenovember.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/trial-of-a-time-lord-2-mindwarp/ 

https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/02/04/perpugilliam-peri-brown-trial-of-a-time-lord-mind-warp/

She starts with a pink v-neck, crossover top which she covers up with a pink, white and blue patterned kimono top. On her bottom half, she wears cobalt trousers whcih have a pink patterned tie top. She wears white heels, pink dangly earrings and a white bracelet.

I realised I could probably do a closet cosplay of this look with things I owened, bar the kimono top. However, it was finding a lovely light summer cover-up in the St Frances Hospice charity shop for £3.50 last Saturday, that enabled me to complete this look:

I realised that the pink top I wore for Peri's Attack of the Cybermen  look could double up for Peri's top here and my Cobalt linen trousers (TARDIS blue!???), bought in Florence, Summer 2019 would work to go with them. I used my Japanese kimono cord to wrap round my waist.

In place of Peri's white heels, I added my Aldo sandy heels.  I wore pink starry earrings in place of her pink bunch of grapes. I have purple Amethyst earrings of the same style as hers but they don't show up. My bracelet was a present from a child!

What I initially put on just for these photos ended up being an outfit I stuck with- it was really comfortable and good for the weird weather we had on Sunday! I loved my Kimono top and I love the cobination of pink and blue!

What about you?

I had a lovely day with my Mum. Went over by bike-train-bike-train-bike, visited my sister and niece first and then went to my Mum's and had Spaghetti Bolognese, went for a delightful walk, sat with a cat on my lap and then went home via car-train-bike-train-bike!

Hope you are well!

xx

Balloon sleeves

Hello!

Made it to Half Term, thank the Lord!

I'm so tired after this Half Term.  Partially my own fault from saying yes to lots of music but also  just the pressures of school.

Alas, my Passport has not come back yet so no further afield adventures for CBC and I sadly. I sent it off on April the 6th but I am experiencing the publicized delays!

Cute, cute thing today.  So, one of our Assistant Heads and I discovered that we both have a penchant for buying and reading new children's books so we've been having a lovely swap and chat over the last half term.  I lent her a few different books and then recently gave her the Scarlet and Ivy series which comprises of 6 books. I read all 6 books over a 2 week period and was absolutely compelled by them.  Similarly, my Deputy Head has not been able to put them down. When she sees me, she gives me an update on where she is up to and how much she loved the books.   She had returned all but the last one to me and I left them in a pile in the little music practice room at school.  On  Wednessday, one of my lovely Year 5 girls returned me my Doctor Who book she'd borrowed and I asked her if she wanted to borrow Scarlet and Ivy book 1 which she excitedly agreed to. This afternoon, 2 days later,  she found me in the playground accompanied by a Year 5 teacher.  Apparently, she'd been trying to find me all day but hadn't wanted to disturb me.  She'd been reading non-stop all day, having accidentally left it at school and really wanted to borrow Book2. I agreed and asked if she wanted to borrow 2 over the holidays. However, I decided to take 4 books to her classroom. Her little face when she saw I'd bought 4 for her to borrow- she was so thankful!

Another nice thing was today I did a 35minute singing session with Reception so I could teach them the Jubilee songs I would like the whole school to sing at our Jubilee picnic.   I've not done music with them before as obviously things have been very stressful in terms of room but they were so sweet and enthusiastic!  It was lovely.

My Year 6 kids did a good performance of Papageno's aria from The Magic Flute on the tuned instruments which was lovely.

My Gamelan performance went well on Wednesday and it was really exciting to play with the group again.

Onto my outfit. I wore this on Thursday and really liked it! I bought the blouse on Saturday from the British Heart Foundation Charity Shop in the 12 minute tea break in my orchestra rehearsal.  It's from Oliver Bonas which is a shop I love but have not ever bought anything from as it is so expensive!  This blouse was £5.99.  It's SUCH a lovely chambray material and I adore the Balloon sleeves. It fits really well!

Looking at these photos, I realise my green ASOS trousers really needed an iron! Ah well.

I added my iridescent Esoteric London earrings and necklace (both purchased in a Seconds Sale) to accessorise and my Aldo 3 coloured heels.

It was quite a good outfit for taking me from school to going out for dinner at the Harvester with my work colleagues T and C.  It's the 4th or 5th time we've done that this year and it's been really nice to become better friends with both of them. Both of them are in their 50's and have been at my school for about 5 years longer than me. It's nice to have friends in school!

Hope all is ok with you!

x

TARDIS Tuesday- Revolution of the Daleks- Yasmin Khan's outfit

Hello there!

I'm almost at the end of my manic 2 weeks- just tomorrow night's Gamelan performance at my old Alma Mater to do and then I have no other engagements for a little while.

This week for TARDIS Tuesday, I thought I'd return to an outfit I featured back in December 2020 by current companion, Yasmin Khan. It seemed a good outfit for the curious weather we are having at the moment.

It features a red animal print tie-hem blouse from Miss Selfridge, indigo jeans, a black leather jacket with lapels and Y and Z floral initials from Alex Monroe.

I decided that I would wear this outfit for school (with slight alterations) today.

I started with the same blouse. I really like the colour of it and the pattern is quite cheerful.  Although it's animal print, it's quite abstract.  It was a comfortable piece to wear.  I wore a coloured vest top underneath.

Rather than jeans, which are not in our dress code, I wore black trousers along with my Dune boots from another Yaz outfit.  My 'leather' jacket was £3 from my local charity shop a while back- I didn't wear this one last time I wore this outfit.

I can see that I've caught the colour in my face here.   The final part of my outfit was my floral necklaces.  Last time I wore this outfit, I actually wore homemade necklaces made out of silver card to emulate Yaz's Y and Z necklaces but I found these cute initial necklaces from Avon on eBay and thought they were really pretty so I chose a K and Z for Kezzie!  A work colleague complimented me on my outfit.

The day was a mixed bag.  I had a good morning with Year 1 listening to and comparing Vivaldi's 1st movement from Spring from the Four Seasons and Christian Sinding's Rustles of Spring. The afternoon with Year 2 was horrendous- wet playtime with a thunderstorm was not conducive to children who listen. I really hate teaching in the hall classrooms.

My weekend was lovely.  After an extensive tidying and cleaning session on Friday night and Saturday morning, I headed on the train to the town where my concert was. I got there early so had a look round the shops. I ended up buying some products in the Refill shop and ended up with a few items from the charity shops including a brand new children's book that was on my wishlist! What are the odds of the book I wanted, that was only published last year, being there?!

The rehearsal went well and then I met my work friend T for dinner at the Thai restaurant. To my delight, CBC was home early from DoE expedition so he came to watch the concert on the train.  I had 8 people in the audience who came to see me including him and T!  The concert was lovely and went really well.  Dvorak's New World Symphony, Grieg's Peer Gynt suites and Strauss' Overture to Die Fledermaus. Afterwards, we stayed to chat whilst CBC and T had a beer (they get a keg to sell to the audience!  Then CBC, T and I walked to the station and went home. T was staying at ours. The next morning, CBC headed off cycling and after breakfast, T and I set off on a 10 mile walk. It was really nice to have her company!

Yesterday, after work, I went to the first rehearsal of an East London orchestra who are super good! They were one of my last concerts before lockdown in 2020 and are such a high standard.  I thought it was going to be a pain to get to and from the rehearsal venue but it was SO easy from school. 4 stops on the train and a really pleasant cycle to and from the station with a lovely cycle lane and what seemed a nice road.

Hope all is well with you!

xx

Indian coolness and the last week

Hello!

How's your week been?

Here's an outfit from a week ago! It's my lovely Phool dress which I picked up in the charity shop in Hexham and was gorgeous to wear on a sunny, warm day! I decided to add my Greater Plains belt which I bought in Cardigan, Wales.  Not much to say other than it was lovely to wear!

How has this week been?

It's been busy! Last week, I was at home on Monday night  but then out 3 nights- one at my Kensington  Orchestra then twice at Balinese Gamelan rehearsals.  The first of these was great as only about 8 people were able to attend which meant that I was able to consolidate a few bits I wasn't sure about.

We had a lovely day at school on Friday where it was Mental Health awareness day for children. Everyone came in wearing green which was very soothing and then the entire school went out to do a Mental health walk, raising money for 2 local mental health charities which help children including couselling.  Our PHSE lead did a super job and there was so much to organise.  There was a wonderful excitement in the air (particularly after SATS for the Year 6 children) and there was such a positive reaction from local people and parents.  I didn't take part in the walk as it was my PPA time (and my deputy head told me I needed to take my time) but I did make up a song which I taught to Year 3,4,6 which was on Mental Health and cut boxes for placards for each class.

As there were SATS last week and I have no music room obvs, I had to adapt my lessons somewhat which was mostly ok. Managed to get one Year 4 class to play glockenspiels with their fingers to avoid noise and in Year 2, managed to do a listening lesson which was fine apart from when I played an internet video which was unexpectedly loud! Turned it off asap but did get a visit from SLT to essentially say shut up!

Our lovely Viburnum plant is looking gorgeous this year, covered in delicate snowballs so I've cut one or two to put into little vases!

The Foxgloves are flowering early and they are beautiful!

Here's a little photo of the lovely Viburnam.

When I went to empty the school teabags onto my raised bed (51 this week), I was dismayed to have more of what I suspected to be Jerusalem artichokes coming up.  Must have left some in the ground last year- they took over the whole bed so I wasn't impressed as they didn't seem to give too much food last year. Dug up several monsters

After school on Friday night and after doing the teabags, I decided to go and do my favourite lockdown walk which I haven't done for ages.  The fields were looking wonderful with lots of cow parsley and buttercups plus a beautiful sunset. I felt so calm and relaxed- walking alone is really good for your mood!

Saturday was my Kensington Orchestra's concert. It was a great success- we performed Beethoven's 1st symphony, Mozart's overture to Cosi Fan Tutti and the world premiere of a Bassoon concerto by Elizabeth Winters.  It was also bittersweet, as our wonderful conductor since 2006, the amazing Tom Seligman, is not really able to be our full time conductor anymore since a) he's moved to Germany, b) is having a baby with his German partner and is very busy with work in Germany.  We are so lucky to have had him for so long, despite his conducting at the Royal Opera House and doing all sorts of other amazing projects.  It was unofficially his last concert with us though he hopes to come back when he can. We are all spoilt though as he is amazing in so many differerent ways. We all shared memories from our time in the orchestra with him. I am lucky because I've been there throughout his entire tenure (I joined in 2003)

We ate at a great All you Can eat Thai restaurant in between (£8.95 each) and I bought some great unpackaged vegetables and fruit from the market- Chicory, green beans, cucumber, vine tomatoes, beans, salad potatoes, strawberries.

Today, I had a fun orchestra rehearsal in Essex (another orchestra, another concert) in which I managed to successfully hum the 2nd horn part which made the conductor wonder where the invisible 2nd horn was hiding. It's a super popular programme- Dvorak's New World Symphony, Grieg's Peer Gynt suites (including the famous Morning and In the Hall of the Mountain King) and Strauss's overture to Die Fledermaus.  

When I got home, I went into the garden and picked a box full of rocket from my raised bed.  I LOVE that Wild Rocket is perennial- it just grows back by itself! Can't wait to eat it all Summer. I came in and cut it up into 4 boxes, alongside cucumber, carrot, chicory and then a box of Tuna, sweetcorn and Mayonnaise so I don't have to think about lunch all week and actually have something healthy and prepared. I am BAD at preparing lunch so this was a major achievement for me but necessary as I have SUCH  a busy week! 

I then picked the bolting Perpetual Spinach from the Raised bed alongside Chard and Onion Scapes and then prepared dinner for tonight and also for Wednesday night. 

I chopped and fried the Chard and Spinach, Onion scapes with an Aubergine, chicory, tomatoes

At the same time, I cooked red lentils in Vegetable stock with green beans and made a sort of Dhal with it. It was delicious and means I have a cooked dinner for Gamelan on Wednesday night and CBC also has a cooked and prepared health meal when I am not there as I know he won't eat otherwise.

Tomorrow night, we are going to Camden to watch a wonderful Nigerian Afrobeats gig at a Jazz cafe.  We will eat there so nothing to get ready then. On Tuesday night, I will have another Essex orchestra rehearsal so I will eat in Wetherspoons before it as otherwise I have to kill 1hour and 45 mins after school closing and the rehearsal starting and I discovered last concert, that Wetherspoons is cheap but interesting option which is quick and close to the rehearsal venue and somewhere I can chill out and read a book as there is no time to go home and back again.

Next Saturday is the Essex orchestra's concert in Brentwood and my work colleague is coming along and is going to stay at mine so we can have a big long walk on Sunday as she loves walking. CBC is at Duke of Edinburgh expedition so it will be nice to have company. About 6 other friends are coming to the concert too which is a nice change!!

Better get to bed!

Hope you are well!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Peri Brown from The Mysterious Planet- 80's suit!

Hello there mes amigos.

Hope you had a lovely weekend. I had a wonderfully unfixed one. I didn't end up covering flute for that friend (which I was quite relieved about- didn't really fancy a full on weekend since the next 2 will be also!). Friday night, we headed out for Thai. CBC had an interview to become Head of department at school which he got. Which of course meant he was knackered which meant virtually falling asleep at the table so I boxed up the remaining food (I come prepared with my own boxes), which meant, together with an extra container of rice, which the owner kindly gave us, meant dinner was sorted for Saturday night! I did various bits of cleaning, tidying etc over the weekend and paid a visit to the library to pay my usual fines (when will I learn) and return a book.  We also ended up having a late lunch out on Saturday. When I was in town to return my library books, I naturally paid a visit to the charity shop.  To my delight, they had a blazer which I have had saved in my favourites on Depop which I'd been thinking about buying, but never done. I have the matching trousers for it (Miss Selfridge sale before it closed down) and it's a linen striped summer suit. And also, the blazer was perfect for a Doctor Who cosplay! It cost me £8 which, as a donation to charity, I was happy with. 

So...naturally, I decided to don it for this week's TARDIS Tuesday.

Here's the inspiration:

IMage borrowed from Darren Mooney on Twitter
https://twitter.com/darren_mooney/status/1185955427026165760

Image borrowed from:
https://them0vieblog.com/2013/06/25/doctor-who-the-trial-of-a-time-lord-the-mysterious-planet-review/

IMage borrowed from Darren Mooney on Twitter
https://twitter.com/darren_mooney/status/1185955427026165760

For a change, there are lots of good quality images of it available! It was worn by Peri Brown (played by Nicola Bryant) in the 1980's for a series arc called A trial of a Timelord.  The first story in this serial was called The Mysterious Planet.  Peri wears a rather covering outfit compared to her previous season's outfits which were usually low cut and short!

Fun fact:  My very first classic Who video and episode watched as a 16 year old, when I got back into Doctor Who was this.  My wonderful sister bought me the Trial of a Timelord (which came in a TARDIS tin!) as a Christmas present that year. Best present ever! 

I've been considering this outfit for about 2 years (as mentioned re the blazer).  I had everything in my wardrobe except the stripy blazer. I knew I'd really like to get the matching blazer for my Miss Selfridge trousers but was always hoping I could find them cheaper than the £10.00 + postage on Depop.

Here's my version which I'm very pleased about since the blazer is the only thing I didn't have already.

It was fun to try and recreate some of the absurdly camp poses (which I presume were promo shots for the season).

The yellow blouse I am wearing has featured in Style Imitating Art a number of times AND was worn for a Sarah Jane Smith Who outfit about 4-7years ago. It was from a vintage shop.  I just tucked its regular collar inside to give it a neckline like Peri's.  

My trousers, from Next,charity-shopped at least 9 years ago, are getting a bit tight now but are much loved.  Alas, I didn't have a navy belt (I used to!) but this stretchy black one did instead.

Grandad's straw boater made another appearance (has been worn for both Romana and Yaz cosplays) and I decided to use my 7th Doctor Question mark umbrella in place of a cane.

Finally, there's even a bit of Clara in there.I used my T-bar Clarks heels from my Mummy on the Orient express outfit but tucked in the T-bar so they were just regular ankle straps.

We have a rainbow umbrella from Flying Tiger (has featured in various outfits before including my rainbow one) so I couldn't resist including it!

And that's a wrap- Da naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

What do you reckon?  I really like the way this outfit looks and might even consider wearing this for work- with a little rearrangement of the neckline!

Fungi #10

 It's been a while since my last Fungi post.  These were actually from last October when CBC and I were in Hexham and I saved these as a draft!  On this walk, we saw SO many different mushrooms and these were the last ones from that trip!

These Shaggy Parasols (I think!) were absolutely huge and CBC spotted them over a wall and hopped over to take the picture for me. It was quite dark so they are a bit blurry.

We saw this toadstool turned over. I've got a mushroom book so I wouldn't mind going back to try and ID them!

There was quite the large collection of these pretty toadstools.   They were small.

Love this type of mushroom which I often see.  They remind me of Tiramisu!

Most of the Fly Agaric toadstools were chomped but this was probably the best example!

Since reading my Fungi book, I have realised there are absolutely masses of white mushrooms! You really have to be careful to find the edible ones!

Style Imitating Art- Anne M Bray's Scrappy squares

 I got out the habit of joining in with Style Imitating Art over the last few months which is sad as there have been some superb inspiration art pieces.

A wonderful new host has joined the SIA team- Shelbee from Shelbee on the Edge.  I have long admired Shelbee's Style Imitating Art posts where she shared detailed outfits and the inspiration behind them so I am super happy she's now going to be choosing the inspirations every 3rd turn.

She chose art by a fellow blogger and artist, Anne M Bray who decided to turn scrap fabrics into art rather than wasting them. They are called Scrappy squares and Shelbee has one named after her!

We were invited to choose one to inspire our outfit.

I chose Karo:

Shelbee's round up post was fab as she paired all 10 ladies with their chosen piece. So here's mine,

I chose Caro as I wanted to wear my beautiful, comfortable linen jumpsuit from Seasalt which CBC bought me for my 40th birthday.  I added my charity-shopped black pointelle cardigan as the pattern is sort of created on my arms by the 'holes' in my cardigan.  I added my black velvet Kangol beret (charity shopped) and to finish off, my black/white patterned Toms shoes match up with the black and white pattern rather nicely. Alas, I have no closeup picture of them!

My little sister took this picture of me in the Bluebell woods near her house. She also took photos on her SLR but I'm going to have to wait for those!

I urge you to go and look at Shelbee's round up post as it's fabulous how all 10 ladies interpreted their chosen squares!

Hope you had a successful day! I rather like my Wednesdays as it's 3 lessons of Year 5, plus one Year 6, Year 5-6 singing assembly and then choir.  In Singing Assembly, we've been learning Sakura, a Japanese folk song and I'd shown them videos of the Shakuhachi and Koto playing a version of it last week, so I took in my Sulangsong, a bamboo flute specially made for me by a flute maker from Bandung, Java, called Efendi who created his own flute which is a mixture of the Japanese Shakuhachi, the Sundanese Suling and the Sumatran Saluang.

Here is a duet version with the koto and the Shakuhachi

My Year 5's were working on their river buildups for Vltava (Smetana) and my 6's were improving their Beethoven 5th Symphony Developments. 

Do you remember I was a little sad about having low numbers in choir compared to last term?  Well, it all worked out in the end due to some individual targetting and some surprises and I have 31 in choir now including some real sweeties! Choir sounds pretty good!

How far would you go for the environment?  Am I that crazy that I carried home 8 smelly crab shells from my Dad's? I was clearing up the table after a lovely seafood platter and I asked if they had food waste for me to put the shells in. My stepmum replied that they don't have it (and obvs putting fishy stuff in the home compost is a no no as it encourages rats).My Dad commented that it was such a shame to have to put the shells in the bin because there are lots of valuable minerals that could be returned to the soil.  I decided to take matters into my own hands and cunningly wrapped all 8 shells in some waste plastic and hid them in my bag.  I fessed up to my Dad later on and he chuckled and told me, "Good on you!" but agreed the rest of the family would think me insane for doing this.

When I got back, I washed the shells up to clean them and I crushed them with a garden trowel tonight to add to my compost. Yes, it was grim but I made a promise that I would try my best to ensure things aren't wasted!

Anyway, hope you have a lovely day! Don't forget to go and see Shelbee's round up!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- TARDIS print!

 This week, for TARDIS Tuesday, I thought I'd go back to one of the original tenets of TARDIS Tuesday which was dressing in TARDIS Blue shades. For anyone that doesn't know (AKA, was not here back when my TARDIS Tuesdays began), TARDIS Tuesday was begun by Maricel Edwards.  Alot of times, in the early day, she (and I, and others who joined in), would all wear shades of blue for Tuesdays.  When I got more into imitating Doctor Who outfits (Clara has a lot to answer for!), I stopped using TARDIS blue as my inspiration.  Actually though, my first Doctor Who imitations didn't come from TARDIS Tuesday- the idea originally came from Melanie who used to blog at the Folly Bird and she used various Doctors as style inspirations- which I LOVED, so joined in with!

Anyway, that long preamble is to let you know I'm not cosplaying a character today, I'm using the TARDIS as my inspiration!

I bought this dress second-hand (but new...) from someone on eBay a few years ago and is, by far,the prettiest TARDIS fabric I've seen! I wore it with a lovely silk-mix Oui cardigan which has matching blue spots!

My Impossible Girl necklace (Clara's pseudonym) goes well with it and I added some glittery blue Lorelai LQ earrings to complete the look

Did you enjoy your bank holiday weekend, UK-based peeps!?  I really did!  Made trips to 2 separate woods to visit bluebells, saw my Mum, sister, niece and then Dad, Stepmum, other sister, did a brilliant Post Puzzle with our friend Nath, did lots of gardening.   Returned to school today with at least a third of the children off because of Eid. Having less children made the return slightly more bearable!  We've got a polling day on Thursday so it's a bit of a funny week. I'll also be covering a different year group on Friday afternoon so it's all a bit topsy-turvy. Plus, I am on standby for covering flute for an orchestra weekend.  A lovely oboe-playing friend, who was a real encourager of me in my early days as a flute player, died last week.  He will be much missed. But his son is supposed to be playing flute this weekend but just in case he doesn't feel up to it and needs to pull out, I'm on standby...but he doesn't know I'm on standby, as the organiser doesn't want him to feel stressed in any way, so I'm all a little out of kilter, not knowing what might happen next weekend.

If I don't end up covering for my flute friend, I will have a free weekend before I have two consecutive weekends of orchestra concerts- the first in Nottinghill on the 14th, in Essex on the 21st and then  Balinese gamelan concert in Islington on the 25th so lots of nice things to look forward to. 

Came across the most BRILLIANT music subscription box called Music Library, based in the USA.  It's SUCH a cute idea- you get sent a children's story book which is based on music, plus then you get an instrument and craft-activity included. It's so cool! Oh, how I wish I had the budget at school to subscribe to something like that.  Actually would be lovely to start a music library for the kids to encourage their musicality. Sadly, not though! Not least, the international postage would be very expensive, plus the worry about import taxes but I really like the sound of it! From the same source, also heard about these brilliant Soundbellows!!! Her school must have some massive budget! I am trying not to be envious (also has an ENORMOUS room- oh how I miss my room!!!!!!).  Just occasionally, I wish I worked in a more affluent area! I already keep buying books out of my own money so need to stop doing that!

Had fun today with the Year 2's, teaching them about Morse Code! Also, teaching only 17-20 year 1 children today was a joy- all of them managed to learn a tune- it was so easy to teach with such a small number!

Finished the most ridiculously unbelievable Whodunnit today- Dandy Gilvers and the Mirror dance. I love this series, but the whole denouement was ridiculous!

Had a nasty shock when I got to my destination station this morning as I discovered my lanyard had lost its wallet- no train ticket, no work ID, no network railcard. Thank the Lord my Debit card was not in there (often is).  Had to pay £13 single fare home (nice ticket guy when I arrived let me through as he's seen my season ticket for 10 years but on the way back they said I had to buy a ticket) and was worried I'd have to pay all sorts of replacement fees. Luckily, when I got home, I found it in my shopping bag! Phew!

Right, I'm off to bed.

Hope you are well.

xx