TARDIS TUESDAY My favourite Romana

Had a LOVELY weekend!!! We went to Rochester on Saturday and Sunday, went over to Mum's.  All lovely. More on that anon.  For TARDIS Tuesday, I am featuring an old favourite. It was last featured in August 2023 on here.

IMage borrowed from this Pinterest

You can see it in all these different images.

IMage borrowed from this Pinterest

Worn by Mary Tamm playing Romana in her second story, The Stones of Blood, it's very Kate Bush!

Here's my 2025 iteration, worn on Sunday to go over to Mum's! 

I am wearing a charity-shopped burgundy top and an eBay-purchased red tier skirt.  Both are super comfy to wear and good for a warm Spring day.

They are hard to spot but I wore a thin gold chain necklace and a gold bracelet to match Romana's.  The chain was my Nan's.  The bracelet a present from a child.

I added this gorgeous jacket bought in Rochester on Saturday from the Demelza charity shop. It's from a Marbella based brand and I saw it hanging in the shop window and pounced! It's quilted on the inside and features a thick brocade material and embroidered flowers and ric-rac.  I ended up wearing it all day in Rochester as it was cold in the shade and I'd left my jacket in the car. Super pleased with the jacket as I've been wanting something like this for a while! Vix, it's your fault!

 Here's Mummy and I together. We went over to hers to see her as she wanted to give CBC his birthday presents and she's cracked a bone in her wrist.  She made a delicious crustless asparagus quiche using her home grown asparagus!  She served it with her own homegrown rocket and beetroot as well as tomatoes and Sauerkraut. Such a fresh-delicious lunch.  We took over a less-healthy chocolate cake from Waitrose.  We were both sad to leave hers!

If only weekends were longer!

xx

Easter Joy and flowers!

Christ has died,

Christ is risen,

Christ will come again!

Easter Sunday is always so joyful! I didn't know if we were going to be back in time for me to attend my own church as we were in Hexham, which would still have been lovely,  but I was so happy to be at church!  Sadly, I didn't make it up for 5.30am for the Sunrise service but I was there for 9.15 service to worship and play my flute. It was a joyous occasion!!!! The entrance to the church had been set up with a line of knitted flowers of various kinds on sticks.

I came home to find CBC had not gone out cycling which I was sort of happy about as often he's out for a lot of Sunday. 

Went out into the garden to have a look at the new life outside.

There was blossom on all the trees, some of it older than others now.

The Forget-me-Nots were out in their full mist of glory.

The Viburnum is starting to form its snowballs- their time is so fleeting so it's lovely to capture them before their zenith.

The apple tree is covered in Blossom! I am so excited! Please give us lots of apples this year!

One of the blueberries has lots of flowers on it.

My garden is reflected in my outfit for church. I always wear something floral and a dress on Easter Sunday.  This year, I decided to wear the handmade vintage dress which I recently was given from my Godmother. I was a little bit concerned I looked  a bit too dressed up!

I wore it with my Monssoon velvet jacket and Florence blue leather boots.

The dress fits me exactly like it was tailored to my dimensions. I think I'd like it a tiny bit looser but it does fit well

I wore it with my bee necklace.

Later in the day, I changed as  I wanted to veg on the sofa.  Later, we wanted to go out for dinner and it was a bit chilly so here's what I wore then:

My vintage cardigan and striped top plus a M&S silk skirt, a beret and my blue Dr Martens!

We headed out for a Thai meal which was delicious.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Romana from the Stones of Blood

 Hi y'all!

I am returning to an old favourite for TARDIS Tuesday.  An old favourite that was never quite right!

I have attempted this outfit 3 times. In 2022, 2019 and 2017.   

It was worn by the wonderful Mary Tamm who played our first ever companion Time Lady who travelled with the Doctor in the TARDIS in the role of Romana. She joined for a 6 episode season entitled The Key to Time.  I really like these six stories as I absolutely love a sort of treasure hunt programme. My favourite childhood TV series was T-Bag which was all about the search for some sort of trinklets or other!

This outfit was worn in the 3rd story, The Stones of Blood which took place on Earth and was set around some standing stones which turned out to be of Alien origin.

Romana wore a couple of outfits but this one is my favourite:

IMage borrowed from this Pinterest

You can see it in all these different images.

IMage borrowed from this Pinterest

And here is the, I am pretty sure, final regeneration of this outfit (see what I did there??)

This length of hair is the best match I've had for all the times I have attempted this outfit. 

I started with the red gypsy tiered skirt which took a lot of searching when I bought it back in 2019.  I've rolled it up a bit this time to make it more of a match for Mary Tamm's one AND if I wore this to cycle in, I might avoid mangling the hem like I did last time I wore it!

My ancient eYe Italian boots are just about visible underneath.

The newest addition to this outfit is the top! I just couldn't quite get the top right but I think I am pretty much there on both the colour, shape, features and fit of this one now. It is originally from New Look but was purchased for £4 in the charity shop a while back. It is very comfortable and I've already worn in another combination.

Maybe the next time I wear this, I might try to make a DIY Key to Time detector to brandish for the picture. It seems a bit strange to wear 2 shades of red like this but I do think it works. Do you?

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Missy

 Hello!

For TARDIS Tuesday, I am going to share an outfit inspiration and character that last featured on this blog back on my birthday cosplay party...but it wasn't worn by me!! It was worn by Fil and Sophie!  However, I did have an outfit inspired by Missy back in 2015.

Yes, the queen of mean is my inspiration for this week.

For anyone who doesn't know who I am talking about, The Master was a villain introduced to Doctor Who during Jon Pertwee's tenure of Doctor Who. He was a rival, renegade timelord and was the Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock.  He was played by the wonderful Roger Delgado.  He sadly died in an unexpected car accident whilst Pertwee was still the Doctor and the character was not seen for another few years until he turned up burned in The Deadly Assassin with Tom Baker. In the penultimate Tom Baker story, The Keeper of Traken, the wasted character from the Deadly Assassin took over the body of Tremas (anagram of Master!), a Traken man played by Anthony Ainley and he terrorized the Doctor through Peter Davidson's tenure. He disappeared again until the final 7th Doctor Story, Survival where he had become infected with The Cheetah People's something or other.  He then appeared in the 1996 movie played by Eric Roberts  He disappeared for another decade and turned up in David Tennant's era in the form of Derek Jacobi and then John Simm.  Finally, in Peter Capaldi's era, He became She and Michelle Gomez played the bonkers female version of him called Missy!

I'm using the Series 10 version of Missy whose hair is a bit more wild, less-Mary Poppinsesque and her outfit is darker but with Edwardian influences still strongly featuring.

Image borrowed from Arstechnica

Image borrowed from The Radio Times

IMage borrowed from this Twitter.

Doctorwhotv.com

In this version of Missy's outfit from Doctor Who series 10 (in which the Doctor is trying to redeem Missy, AKA, the Master, she wears a variation on her Mary Poppins-esque outfit.

A dark brown paisley blouse with rounded white collar and cuffs, a brown neck bow with red flowers and a dark purple full length skirt and black boots.  

I saw an instagram cosplayer share a work in progress version of this Missy and thought to myself, "Hmmm, I could do a closet cosplay version of this without getting anything additional that might work quite well."

And here we go:

I'll start from the very begining, a very good place to start...

Wait, that's the Sound of Music, wrong Julie Andrews film.  Hold on, Mary Poppins isn't right either??? Ah, Michelle Gomez, Doctor Who!

I began with my white round-collared shirt from ASOS (which has featured in various cosplays including Romana and Yaz Khan).

Over the top of that, I layered my cappucino-coloured Boden shirt, bought originally, secondhand for my Clara Oswald 60's echo outfit. I tucked its own collar in.

Next, to emulate Missy's neck-tie, I added a black silk with red flowers scarf from Primark.

Yeah, Missy did a dab when she was pretending to be The Doctor in one episode.  This being the only time I would do one! The final two clothing elements were my 1970's Droopy and Brown skirt which was given to me by a friend and my black Clarks ankle boots.

I am notoriously bad at HAIR styling and struggled a bit with this but I put my hair in a highish ponytail (as high as mine goes...which isn't very) and then used hairgrips to pin it messily to the top of my head!

It was quite fun incorporating the piano into these photos.  Right colour, wrong model, mine being an upright, not a grand piano!

It was quite fun trying to pull slightly manic, slightly evil facial expressions!  I'm quite good at those. My A for GCSE drama came from playing a child-killer suffering from Postnatal depression and mania and Satan (modelled from Eric Roberts' Master from the 1996 Doctor Who the Movie), not from nice characters or essays!! Eeek!!!

So, what do you think? Does my version of Missy cut the mustard?  

xx

Style Imitating Art- Woman who flatly refuses a coffee pot!

 Daenel chose Paul Cezanne's Woman With a Coffee Pot for this week's inspiration piece for Style Imitating Art.

The premise of this challenge, if you have not ever seen a post from me about it before, is that one of our 3 curators chooses a piece of art and posts it. We, the blog readers can then submit an outfit to them that we feel reflects some aspect of the painting of is our sartorial response to it, no matter how tenuous.  For me, I always like to hear the person's choices of why they chose garments- that's what I find the most interesting so I love reading posts where people write about their decisions.  There's no wrong or right answer and flatlays and pet outfits are also accepted, props are optional.  If you think this is something you'd find fun, then pop an email to Daenel at livingoutsidethestacks@gmail.com by Tuesday night and then visit Daenel's blog on Wednesday to see the round up of everyone's outfits.

The piece is pretty powerful.  She doesn't look too happy to me about her coffee but maybe she just burnt her tongue and it's slight grimace, coupled with a yearning for coffee NOW!

Here's my outfit!

I knew that I had two outfits that I would do for this picture and I would go down the more literal route than abstract.  

The first thing I did was to go down my 'clothes to cull' bag to take this dress out.  It's a vintage 70's one I bought about 8 years ago and I haven't worn for about 2 years or more but it was always a bit too big on me and sometimes I felt it was a bit too 'kitsch' and dress up for me. It's been in a cull pile under my bed for a while.  However, I thought the shape of the dress plus its style, neckline and colour made it suitable for the challenge and, actually, having tried it on again, it actually fits me better now, so perhaps it might keep its place for now.

Black leggings for warmth and my men's brown brogues plus my Mum's vintage belt were a nod to the table cloth and that's about all I have to say for my outfit- I think it speaks for itself.

On the subject of coffee, from my nomenclature of this post, you can perhaps hypothesize that I am none too fond of this popular beverage.  Funnily enough though, I ended up talking to my Year 6 children about coffee today as we were listening to J.S. Bach's Hunt Cantata and whilst I was explaining what a cantata is* and talking about Bach and what the subject of some of his cantatas were, I told them that he loved coffee so he wrote a cantata about it.  Here's a link to the lyrics translated from German. Do have a look as they are really funny! It's all about a coffee addiction!   Here's an aria from the cantata below sung by the coffee addict! Do listen as it is beautiful!

By the way, in case you aren't sure, a cantata is a medium-scale piece of music from the Baroque era that is narrative (e.g. tells a story) told through the medium of singing and instrumental accompaniment.  It can be a secular or sacred subject matter.  Some people may think they are listening to opera when they hear it but cantatas are not acted out, they are told purely through singing, not on a stage or in costumes usually.  They are shorter too.

The story can be sung by soloists, duets or the whole chorus as well as there being orchestral instrumental sections.

One boy who was sitting in front of me was really getting into Bach's Hunt Cantata and I heard him telling his friend he really liked it! Love it when they really groove to something unexpected.

I've never liked coffee and perhaps you think I should just try it again and see if I like it BUT, I can confirm that it won't happen.  When I was studying in Indonesia, I frequently visited people's houses.  The tradition there is not that you ask your guests if they would like and drink and therefore what they might like.  Instead, you are brought a drink and a snack as a matter of course and it is the expected and polite thing that you drink it.

So I had a year of drinking both sugary tea AND coffee and I would have to finish that glass (always in a glass) and I STILL don't like either!

You can take your coffee and leave me the UNSUGARED tea in exchange.

How do you feel about coffee?  Love it enough to write an entire cantata about it?

Hope all is well with you.

Take care

xx

TARDIS Tuesday - Jo Grant in Day of the Daleks

Hi there,
I hope you are well!  I thought I'd share a Classic Who cosplay today.
I attempted this one back in 2017 here and I thought it was due a return again!
Here's the outfit:

Image borrowed from This Pinterest

It was worn by 3rd Doctor, Jon Pertwee's companion, Jo Grant.  She wore a red and white checked shirt with a  denim pinafore dress over the top with red buttons.  She wears a red scarf tied at the neck and then white knee-high boots with red piping.

And here's my version:

Let's start with the shirt- I bought this from a charity shop back in 2016 and I really like it as it is soft and comfy- I wear it for hikes quite often.

The denim pinafore was a second hand purchase back in 2017.  I accessorized it with a red button brooch I have (that was also charity-shopped)

The red scarf was a purchase when I used to live in East London- I think I've had it about 12 years! I don't have white knee-high boots so I just wore some white knee-high socks I've had for a long time.

Last time I did this cosplay, I wore a different pair of socks and a different shirt but I think these two go better. Also, I couldn't find my red scarf last time so I wore a red lady-tie!  This version is definitely an improvement!

What do you think?

Hope you'd had a great day!

xx

Droopy and Brown

Greetings fellow blogger!

Today, I'm wearing quite a plain-looking outfit, for me, but it is one which is classic and I love very much!

A good friend of CBC's, a work colleague he used to work with 7 years ago, who hails from the same place as me, gave me this beautiful navy-blue Droopy and Brown skirt a few years ago.

She told me about this skirt in hallowed tones and said she wished it still fitted her and it had cost her a lot and it would fit me and suit me beautifully and it would be lovely to see it worn. No one in her family wears anything of that style and she was really happy for it to go to a good home.

It looked beautiful and I said thank you very much, not really knowing anything about Droopy and Brown, except that it made me think of Charlie Brown and Snoopy!

A little while back, Vix posted about Droopy and Brown, saying what a desirable vintage fashion label it was. I was really interesting to read what she wrote and mentioned that I had been given a Droopy and Brown skirt. She said she would really like to see it so finally I am sharing it!

I've not had so much opportunity to wear it as I'm really scared to wear it to work as I am worried, because of the very full skirt, that it might get tangled in my bike chain or wheel and I'd damage it so I've tended to wear it only on weekends and actually very few times.

Droopy and Brown was the fashion label created by Designer Angela Holmes and it is associated with "Quintessential English elegance with a theatrical twist!"

I would definitely agree that this skirt is both of those.  The label name came from a discussion with her brother that she wanted a name that expressed a bygone era and nothing that sounded current, She wanted something that sounded Edwardian- all droopy and brown!"

The label paid homage to historical and past-era clothing rather than what was current but in a really elegant and beautiful contemporary way.

You can read more at:

https://www.theatreoffashion.com/blog/entry/droopy-browns-quintessential-english-elegance

In which case, this label sounds right up my street as I adore clothing with a historical twist- Edwardian and Regency fashion has always been something I've loved.

The skirt is delightfully full and it swishes beautifully! CBC filmed a very silly video of me spinning in the skirt but I can't seem to transfer it from my phone so you can see a happy still above.

It only JUST fits me- it is very high-waisted, so I am glad that I haven't put on much, if any, weight in lockdown (my weight went down at first and has crept up a bit)

Today, I decided to style it with an organic cotton mini-dress from fairtrade brand, People Tree which I bought from ASOS about a decade ago.  It is a bit too tight on the bottom half for me to be comfortable wearing it as a dress nowadays but it works very well as a top.  You can see me wearing it HERE with jeans underneath.

I added some pretty George at Asda Cobalt and Gold peep-toe flats and jewellery-wise, a pretty star necklace from Smile and Make (on Etsy) and Star and Moon earrings from Esoteric London.

CBC was very pleased to see me in this outfit and said it was really pretty, simple and elegant (He sometimes comments that I wear a lot of bright and busy prints but actually he really likes it when I wear something a bit more plain. However, he knows that, for the most part, I ignore him when he says this, as it's my business what I wear.)

You're probably wondering how yesterday went?

Well, as of Friday morning, he was NOT my favourite person, as I'd stayed up tidying and cleaning the house for him (despite saying I wouldn't as it was HIS thing and I didn't want anything to do with it). As is always the case, I feel guilty for being 'mean' and then do something. He was an ungrateful wretch the previous night when he was tired and stroppy so I went off to school feeling FURIOUS with him. I am aware I am way too sensitive on so many levels but there is this part of me that thinks  a lot of the males of the species are SO different to us, and don't seem to understand how feeling can be so easily hurt and that it's not always easy to just be pragmatic and understand that they don't understand how emotional and sensitive we can get. He finds it very easy to just get on and forget having argued with anyone much better than me, whereas it takes me a while to get out of my funk.

When I arrived home, I had decided to be gracious and not be cross with CBC, and just get on and help. I helped him with the last preparations and when he colleagues arrived into the garden, I continued in the kitchen, keeping an idea on the oven, cutting things up, bringing them out and serving them.

Eventually, I emerged into the garden and got talking to my two favourite colleagues of CBC's, avoiding the two that I am not so keen on.

I should point out, that it's not the drinking/smoking that makes me object to those two colleagues, they are much younger and there's a certain way I, bizarrely, feel patronized by them when they talk to me, like I am this saddo older person that they have to be nice to, who is much more boring than my fun, playful  husband, who one of them likes to hang around with him at school, they're just not really my type of person. I just feel a bit tense around them, which probably exasperates the problem. Also the fact that CBC seems to have such fun around them and have 'banter' with them, which I am NOT good at, makes me feel more boring and perhaps makes me act more awkward...  Anyway, I managed to avoid them for most of the evening until the end, when I ended up with them with ended up being ok.

I had a nice chat to the 2 ladies I like very much and the husband of one of them who came.  Everyone behaved themselves in terms of distancing, being sensible and not getting drunk. CBC had put chairs out around the garden and put the table of food in the middle to avoid congregating on the patio and it seemed to work.

Unfortunately, it started to rain, but the three of us remained outside with raincoats on.

After they went, CBC and I tidied up, did the washing up, put spare food away. It HAD been a fun evening for the most part, when I spent time chatting to my favourites (particularly one who I talked to about that job I went for, as she is the one who wanted me to go for the job and knows the current person in that role and the person who got the job!) and it was nice to have socialised in a way that didn't make me feel as panicked and nervous as I was feeling in advance.  I just have to try and get over my paranoia over those two girls (well, mainly one of them, but they come as a pair), as she is a generally very fun, gregarious, well-liked and kind person.  CBC is generally a very good judge of character, so I think the problem is me being oversensitive and perhaps insecure and perhaps just worried, if I'm honest, about a pretty, super confident, fun, young girl spending time around my very cute husband and messaging him.  As I've mentioned, I am so much more comfortable around people who are older than me, and always have done, especially when I don't know them particularly well, so it was never going to be easy.

Ahh, we were so tired waking up this morning!!!

We've had a VERY lazy morning, involving breakfast, reading and Scrabble on my phone. CBC feel asleep with his head on my lap at about 1.30pm.  I've been considering buying a piece of art from a localish artist, especially as a musician, I do think it's really important to be supporting the arts at the moment, with all that is going on, and since I've saved massive amounts of train fare costs in the last 2 months (in the first month I used this money for charitable purposes) I wanted to do something nice for someone in such a precarious industry (as well as getting something pretty for it!)  so I talked to CBC when he woke up and we decided to go and see the picture we were interested in.

We headed to the town, which is a drive away, and went via the Refill room, since we were in Leigh anyway, to go and fill up on shower gel (5 bottles worth! I've refilled those bottles so many times! Makes me happy to have avoided so many bottles of plastic going into the recycling cycle or bin). I also bought a new bar of soap and CBC got some coffee.  They also had some 'bring your own container' delicious unusual hummus to buy and I remember I had an old hummus tub in my rucksack which had some crackers in so she kindly gave me a paper bag to put my crackers in and I got some hummus.

We then went to pick up the painting and as we drove back, went through Chalkwell, and I remembered a cafe that a friend of mine's friend runs which has a massive back yard garden (and is still fairly new so relatively unknown), that I wanted to visit, so we went in to get a takeaway milkshake. The owner recognised me from Instagram (!!!), and said that their garden was open and we'd be welcome to drink our drinks there.

We went through the side entrance and it was LOVELY! There were 2 groups of 3 people about 4 metres away from us and what was lovely, was they had a live singer/guitarist who sang some songs for us.  He was a long way from everyone but was very audible and what a delight it was to hear some live music in such a safe, friendly environment.

You can see me in their garden here!

Tomorrow, we are planning to go for a walk and I might even do some flute practice!

I hope you are well.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday in The Power of Kroll

Hello there folks!

I hope you are well!
I periodically like to delve into Classic Doctor Who characters and one of my favourites is Romana, the time lady, as portrayed by Mary Tamm.  She was the first Time Lady to travel in the TARDIS and she had some cracking glamorous outfits! I've featured her twice on TARDIS Tuesday- one, not a bad rendition, the other rather tenuous!

Today, I'd like to feature her outfit from the Key to time story, The Power of Kroll.  This takes place on one of the moons of Delta Magma and features a rather scary large squid called Kroll!!

Let's have a look at a collage of screen shots I've taken of her outfit:

It features a long sleeveless gilet or zip down dress in a burnt orange thick material- suede, corduroy or velvet with a black waistband.  Underneath she wears a black poloneck jumper and black trousers underneath with knee high brown or grey boots.  Her hair has the sides up. It looks very much of its era to me!

And to show my outfit, I thought I'd feature some side by sides.

As you can see immediately, the colours are off with my outfit even though I bought something orange.

I began with an orange corduroy sleeveless dress from eco-clothing brand, Thought (formerly known as Braintree). I bought this second-hand on eBay. I'm actually wearing it backwards with the back zip at the front and the sides turned outwards to look like a collar.  It looks different when you wear it correctly!

Underneath, I wore a black turtleneck from Primark, alongside some Primark leggings. I haven't shopped in Primark for a long time but when I do, it is usually an essential like these which get worn many, many times.

Finally, I added my brown knee-high boots from eYe Boutique. They are very old now but I am very fond of them!

I added a black belt and pinned the sides of my hair up.

I couldn't resist posing in the tied up position from this picture!

What do you think?

Dandelion

CBC constantly declares war on the Dandelions in the lawn.  He wants to dig them up. But Dandelions have been eaten by people in various forms for centuries and the young leaves make a tasty salad, so I would certainly like to take the leaves before he has a chance to cull them.  As well as that, they are a source of early Nectar to bees and butterflies.

A week ago or so, I decided to take a leaf from Vix's book and enjoy wearing one of my vintage maxi dresses for my day at home.  It has Dandelion seeds all over it as well as Thistles.

It is one of my happiest charity shop purchases as I always wanted to find a true vintage dress in my size, reasonably.  I like its empire line and confess to feeling like Elizabeth Bennett or Catherine Morland as I walk around in it.

That day, I decided to wear my hair up in 2 plaits, pinned above my head.

I thought Princess Leia, my Mum said a Fraulein from the Sound of Music!

Here, CBC took a picture of me in front of my beautiful Viburnum (thank you to everyone who confirmed what it is called to me! Annoyingly, I thought it was Viburnum but thought I was getting it muddled up with the shrub with pink flowers that you can see emerging from under the Acanthus to the left in the picture!

They are looking gloriously ebullient and I smile every morning as we look out our bedroom window at them!  They seem to be lasting well too!

I hope you have a beautiful day!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday - 2nd and 3rd Doctor Clara echo

Today, I thought I'd share a TARDIS Tuesday that I really should have done ages ago but just haven't!!!
I've not seen many or indeed any of my Clara pals attempt this cosplay and I've only seen one picture of someone dressing up as this outfit online.

In The Name of the Doctor, the Doctor finds out who Clara, the Impossible girl really is - or rather, why she's impossible!

She appears throughout his timeline, trying to save the various incarnations of the Doctor from the Great Intelligence (which originally appeared in the Second Doctor as it possessed the Yeti!)

She keeps calling the Doctor but sometimes she misses him!
This version of her appears to the Second and the Third Doctor.  Intended to appear in the 1970's, she wears quite a 70's outfit (Please feel free to correct me Vix! Is it more 60's?)
consisting of:

• Light brown Dagger collar shirt/blouse (has some light pattern)
• Brown suede waiscoat
• Tan brown suede button down skirt
• Red headband
• Knee high brown boots (we don't see these but I think they have been confirmed)
• Long flowing hair.

Since my hair is now at its longest for about a decade, I figured, before its imminent* chopping off (hopefully to make a wig someone in need of a wig), I thought I have better actually wear this cosplay whilst I have the hair!

Here are some screenshots I took from the episode.  The originals belong to the BBC.

You can see the outfit in situ (for about 5 seconds at various angles) in the video.

And here's me!

 I quite like the combination of browns! It's a bit like some sort of Chocolate, Caramel cake!

"Doctor!"

 The first item I bought was the skirt a year ago or so. I bought it from someone on eBay for £2.99 secondhand, though it was new.  The second item was the shirt. I cannot tell you how many dagger collar tan shirts I looked through. Never did find a proper 1970's one that was a good enough match combined with a reasonable price so I settled for this Boden linen one for £1.99. It's annoyingly quite short so it keeps popping out of the waistband of the skirt (which could be a bit higher/tighter).
The waistcoat was an issue for a while. Again, I could never find the right size, style or price. Luckily, my charity shop jolly with Sophie and Hazel yielded success with this corduroy one for £1.99 last October/November.

A rifle through a hair accessory box found me a headband and I wore my very old, very, very fragile Italian leather boots.
My hair was quite curly because I'd slept with it in a plait on Friday night so it had the necessary style.

And finally, this Clara echo is complete!

It's quite fun creating a retro-look like this after wanting to do it for so long!

What do you think?

xx
*Imminent:  Whenever I get around to measuring my hair to see if I have the requisite 12inches without ending up with a boy cut and find a hairdresser who can do it properly without the hair getting ruined!

Blue Charity shop chic!

Blogging introduced me to the breadth and variety of vintage clothes that were available. I had long bought second-hand clothing from charityshops and eBay before I blogged (first charity-shop purchase was aged 10! A sequined parrot t-shirt, a vintage TARDIS blue silk blouse and the crysttal droplets from a dismantled chandelier plus a vocal score of The Pirates of Penzance as a gift for me mum) and I'd worn vintage clothing belonging to my Mum and other family friends (I miss those cream flares!) but it wasn't until I got to know Vix, Curtise, Lauren and later, friends like Ann, that I realised utterly beautiful vintage could be found in charity shops in fabrics that I liked! 

I've found two beautiful maxi dresses in charity shops but in Hexham, last week, I made a real find!

This handmade blue floral maxi, perhaps from an old duvet cover, (who knows?), was  £3.50 and it is long enough for me and fits my waist perfectly.  I found, in the same shop, a modern Karen Millen sleeveless blouse that went with it perfectly.  On Saturday evening, we headed out to a lovely Gastropub called The Rat in Anick (no, I don't mean Alnwick, I definitely mean Anick!) and I wore the two together.

With them, I added my tan Mary Jane shoes charity shopped in my local charity shop last Summer plus my Smile and Make Star necklace and I was very happy with my comfy charity shopped chic!

Buying secondhand is much more exciting than buying new- you never know what you might find, not just what the current designers of that shop think is the trend that year!

What do you think?

xx

I want to wear a vintage dress too!

Hi there!

Today was my school choir's production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin and I am pleased to say that our 4 performances were a success!  It was hard, hard work getting there but we did get there in the end!  No major hiccups and the children and parents were a really respectful audience who listened really nicely! That's not always the case!

I'd asked the children to wear vintagey-looking costume for it and as I was thinking about what to wear to school, I felt left and thought, "I want to wear a vintage dress too!"
And so I did!


It has been a few years since I last wore this beautiful Louis Caring of London vintage maxi-dress which I bought from Oxfam.  I absolutely adore this dress and it really fits me well- it's actually long enough!
Lots of admiration from the parentsm staff AND the children for it which is always nice!
There's something so innately feminine about a maxi dress, especially one with long sleeves for me! I am always ogling Vix in hers enviously!

 I added the beautiful druzy necklace that Melanie (the blogger formely known as Folly Bird - still on Instagram as such!) and the gorgeous Canterbury hand-blown glass bird earrings from my little sister for my birthday!

I'm just relieved the whole thing is over now!  

Hope you have had a beautiful day!!!

And don't forget my last post- What is it?  I want to hear what you think it is!

xx