TARDIS Tuesday and kitties

Hello there! Greetings from my Mum's garden! CBC and I went over there for lunch today.  We had our usual customary walk around her beautiful garden to admire her prowess at growing food and flowers and then we walked to the marina to try out a new cafe called Shell's cafe.  It was really really nice with a good selection of food and nice shady tables with amusing paraphernalia on the walls of the garden.  We then walked back to her house but sadly, the sole of one of my shoes completely came off so we had to make it a shorter walk than intended.  RIP these shoes- I love them so much- so comfortable. I bought them from Primark at least 19 years ago so they have had a good innings- going to see if I can glue it back on though. We played with her kitties, drank an intriguing glass of Black lace elder and rose cordial and then headed home via the garden centre where I felt sorry for a manky-looking Erysimum Bowles plant which I bought for £2 and CBC bought some extra stones for the pond, the main reason we went there.

Onto my TARDIS Tuesday outfit. Last posted in June 2024, I am featuring Sarah Jane Smith's final outfit from her days as Tom Baker's companion in the episode, The Hand of Fear, which the wonderful Ang Almond adapted for me 2 years ago or so! (See here the post where I debuted them with explanations of what adaptations she did)

Images borrowed from:
https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/sarah-jane-smith-the-hand-of-fear/

https://bradleybasement.wordpress.com/sci-fi/doctor-who/doctor-who-timelines/the-doctors-timelines-index/the-fourth-doctors-timeline/the-hand-of-fear-tv/

And here's my 2025 iteration of these in Mum's garden!

I wore my same Joe Browns red top which I found in a charity top last year and was pleased as it was the perfect top for this outfit (AND others!). My beautiful dungarees which Ang customised and the aforementioned spotty pumps- not really screen accurate but I saw them in my cupboard as I was dressing and fancied wearing them...

Can you see someone poking out my pocket?

It's Mini-Owl! Sarah Jane holds a stuffed owl with this outfit as she leaves the TARDIS and CBC told me I looked like a Children's TV presenter in this outfit as I dressed and said I needed to fill those pockets so I obliged with Owl...who I knew I could get out easily for photos! We also have Mini Squirrel!

Here in the customary pose! Can you see the sole flapping on my shoe.  That's the one that STILL has its sole!

Had to have a play with darling Bramble

She has a thing about shoes. Has to put her feet into them and then have a rub and sniff around them.

Rowan has a thing about bags...

He had a lovely time playing with my rucksack after investigation.

Until she decided to get involved...

She then attacked the side ties on my dungarees and sunk a claw into my derriere as she attempted to vanquish the dastardly bow!

We had a fun weekend before this with a day spent with CBC's brother and then the Sunday spent with our friend Nath at the beach and out at the pub for dinner after a trip to a garden centre. More on the weekend anon.

Yesterday was largely spent at home.  I peeled, chopped and cooked 5 large containers of apple, blackberries and raspberries for the freezer and then watched Wednesday after an omelette and vegetables.

I ADORE a me-cooked cheese-omelette!!! It's the ONE thing where I prefer to cook it myself!

xx

 

Christmas Clothing Queen

I've lost my mobile phone and  I have been super busy so no comments this week I am afraid! Sorry!!

I've mentioned the wonderful Ang Almond for many reasons but quite a lot in the context of sewing!

I asked her to make me a very special make.

I have a work colleague who loves wearing Christmas-themed clothing all through Advent and December. She raises money for charity by posting daily photos of her in her Christmas attire in different locations and positions.  I suggested to her this week that I take her Tuesday photo in the position of conducting the Year 3-4 choir (She conducts and I play the piano!).

I sent Ang a very vague brief that I would like her to embroider a t-shirt saying something like Christmas Clothing Addict or something of that ilk. I then searched online for a brand new t-shirt on Vinted. I thought polka dots on a dark background would be like snow.

Ang suggested that she had a crown motif and could make a Christmas Clothing Queen logo.  I acquiesced and had the t-shirt sent to her.  She managed to complete it the morning the t-shirt arrived and it was back with me two days later!!!  I was amazed at her fun design! It wasn't what I thought it would be like but it was so much more creative and interesting!

She also very kindly sent me a Christmas jumper decoration AND sent me one for my colleague as well!  I know my colleague will absolutely love both and I cannot wait to give it to her!

UPDATE:  She loved them!x

TARDIS Tuesday- Into the Dalek

 Today's TARDIS Tuesday is one I haven't worn on here since May 2020- that's right, since LOCKDOWN!

It was worn by my original favourite, Clara Oswald, as acted by Jenna Coleman.

In this series 8 episode, she wore a rather creepy outfit comprising of an orange silky shirt covered in blue eyes from a Hong Kong brand called Shalex, indigo high-waisted denim trousers from Just Female, River Island brown/tan high-heeled brogue boots, a brown leather jacket and gold double ring necklace plus a tan satchel.

She discards the jacket for a lot of the episode so I will too!

Image borrowed from this Pinterest

Here I am!

If you've been here a long time, you may recall that this top was adapted for me by my amazing friend and superb prolific blogger, Ang Almond! I found a red eye-print tunic from a brand called Vera and Lucy and Ang transformed it into this blouse. It's a very striking piece, if, a little creepy!

My jeans were from ASOS and are the absolute closest alternative you can get to the real trousers.  They are really comfortable as they are soft and flattering, I think! Plus, they fit me really well, unlike most jeans!

The final item which you can see are these grey brogue boots.  They are the same brand and model as the originals except that they are suede and grey rather than leather and tan! 

I tried to recreate several of Clara's poses in my original post  and wore my leather jacket and satchel (that brown leather jacket I wear for practically every Yasmin Khan post!) but this time, I decided to go with the look without the jacket.  My hair is a better length this time- last time it was long and scraggy!!!

I had a lovely moment last week.  I was waiting with the year 4 children to speak to a parent and all of a sudden, I was incredulous to see the mum of a pupil of mine that left about 9 years ago! I called and like me, she was overwhelmed with joy to see me!  We had an absolutely massive hug (you know the type where you are so excited to see someone and someone you really liked as a person!) .  It turns out she is the aunty of a boy in Year 5 (I had no idea!) I haven't seen her for about 9 years.  She was a lovely lady who is Muslim and who bought me the beautiful hand-carved nativity scene which was made in Bethlehem as a present! It still sits in my living room as it is so beautiful We always used to talk when her son was at school.  Her son was a really good musician. To my delight, she told me he was still playing the piano, aged 20, and had achieved his Grade 8 piano and still very much loved music!  We had another massive hug and then she had to go.  Honestly, it made my day to see her!

On the subject of lovely visitors, on the first day of term, one of my lovely year 6's (the Sad Frog crew), burst into my music room at the end of the day to see me. "I missed you!" we both said to each other with a big hug. She said she'd taken Sad Frog child on holiday! It was so lovely to see her.  The next day, I had another bursting into my room visitor- another of Sad Frog's biggest fan!  She also took her Sad Frog child on holiday.  I asked her if she wanted to borrow a book that I kept telling her about and she was delighted to borrow! She came back the next day to return it, having read it in 24 hours!  She took another one!

Hope all is well with you!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Sarah Jane Smith's Andy Pandy outfit!

Hi! 

It was lovely to have a week off from school but now back to the grind...pity the weather wasn't fantastic but we had a lovely Sunday 15km walk with friends with a great lunch so I really enjoyed the ending!

Let's get onto the main event.

Today, I am featuring another Classic Who outfit from Sarah Jane Smith and it is one, featured for the first time, last year. Last time I wore this on here was June 2023.

Images borrowed from:
https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/sarah-jane-smith-the-hand-of-fear/

https://bradleybasement.wordpress.com/sci-fi/doctor-who/doctor-who-timelines/the-doctors-timelines-index/the-fourth-doctors-timeline/the-hand-of-fear-tv/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/461970874251169940/

https://www.ciaranbrown.com/sladen.html

I've added a few extra images that I didn't include last time.

If you were here a year ago, the wonderful Ang Almond, blog friend and genius adaptor of garments took a simple jumpsuit for me and transformed it into Sarah Jane's Dungarees!

The outfit has had one of two adaptations which I thought I'd note.

Firstly, when I was in Hexham last week, I found a more suitable top in the charity shop for £6. Last time I wore a thicker jumper and then a knitted short-sleeved jumper but the Joe Brown top I am wearing this time is much cooler and more of a match for the original. The previous two tops were not really wearable in the Summer.

I also wore my Red and white Toms espadrilles this time- they are less accurate than the Clara shoes I wore last time but I wanted something more summery.

I didn't wear a headband last time but I realised I had bought a Fairtrade one last Summer in Alnmouth that would work well for the outfit.

When Sarah leaves the Doctor at the end of the episode, she has all her belongings from the TARDIS including a cuddly owl.  Annoyingly, there used to be a similar owl in the loft at WOMOTM's house but it was chucked out before I could rescue it when he died.  Luckily, CBC was a big owl fan as a child (and still) and I just borrowed Mr Owl for these photos! He's an 80's owl rather than a 70's owl.

CBC asked me why Owl was downstairs and gave me a rather nostalgic description of how soft his fur was once upon a time. It was really endearing! He loved that Owl!

Hope all is well with you and you have been having a good week.

Did any of you watch Doctor Who, Dot and Bubble this week?

It was a very effective episode in my opinion and a rather cautionary tale about the dangers of absorbing ones self too much in Social Media as well as a horrible take on the vaccuousness and danger of a very inclusive and racist undertone that social media can have if you aren't aware of it.

Poor Ricky September- he was really nice. The only nice one in the episode.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Vicki Pallister from The Rescue (an Ang collaboration)

 Greetings friends!

Hope you are well!

For TARDIS Tuesday, I thought I'd make a return visit to Classic Who companion, Vicki Pallister and her debut episode outfit from The Rescue.

I last wore it for its debut blog appearance in November 2022

Let's have a look at it:

https://galacticjourney.org/january-10-1965-a-little-breather-doctor-who-the-rescue/

https://www.doctorwho.tv/characters/vicki

Images borrowed from
The Ultimate Guide to the Fashion of Doctor Who

We've got the mini dress with zigzag neck piping,  sort of grey tights and black knee high boots.

One of these days, I will wear this when I've just had my hair cut!

This dress came from a charity shop and then the wonderful Ang added the gold trim for me back in 2022 after we met (when again???!).  This dress is really warm and really easy to wear- it's loose and cosy. I wore this for a trip out to Chelmsford last weekend.  Grey leggings and my charity-shopped Ugg boots (but waterproof biker ones! Well worth the £25 I paid around 4 years ago.) made for a cosy, easy outfit.

Hope you are well!

xx

Thirtyonethirteen.net Shop!

I love an eco-friendly gift! I also love a handmade gift AND supporting a small business!

My good friend Angela has been selling on Etsy for a while and now has opened her own online shop called Thirtyone:thirteen

I have loved crafting all my life - sewing, knitting, papercrafts, embroidery and more. And I admit to being a hoarder- collecting the scraps that other people discard and turning them into beautiful and useful things.  

Now I'm retired, and living in a beautiful part of the country, I have more time to sit and stitch, and I want to share my creativity with others, at an affordable price.

My grandmother taught me crafting skills when I was a child, and she was a woman of faith. My shop is called 31:13 because there is a verse in the bible (Proverbs chapter 31 verse 13) , about a woman who "finds wool and fine linen and works with eager hands" My shop's logo is a play on those numbers - the butterfly reflects the idea of metamorphosis into a new, beautiful life.

In her shop, Thirtyone:thirteen, she has made a variety of beautiful present ideas , most of which are made from reclaimed and reused materials

There's some beautiful items on there.

I have picked one of two favourites to share:

Handwarmers

I love these little handwarmers.  These would be perfect for my way home from school to tuck into my pocket when I am stuck on the train platform waiting for a train! They are an absolute bargain too at £1.50 a pair! They only need a little microwaving to warm them up!

Bird decorations

I bought one of these bird decorations from Ang  a couple of years ago when we met and they are so cute and pretty! I have a work colleague (and a husband, mum) who love birds and would love these! She also does colourful brooch versions of these.

Pencil roll

These handmade pencil rolls with coloured pencils would make a really nice gift for a child or if you wanted to include them in an Operation Christmas Child Shoebox .

Juggling bags

These 'Bags of fun' juggling bags are so cute. I can imagine the kids at school loving these!

Do go and have a look at her lovely website! You might find something you like.  She also has lovely paper flower kit which is a super idea!

xxx

TARDIS Tuesday- Ace McShane from Survival

Hi there!

TARDIS Tuesday is back! Well, it's Tuesday, isn't it?!

Today, I am featuring a Classic Who companion who recently made a reappearance in The Power of the Doctor.  ACE! She was my companion as a child and back in the 1990's, my sister bought me a black bomber jacket which I adorned with my Blue Peter badge and a few other pins to be like her!  I met her in 1998 at the one and only Doctor Who Convention I went to- Panopticon 1998 which was held in Coventry. I booked myself a coach to Coventry and went by myself.  I met Sophie Aldred, the actor who played her, she admired my turquoise nail varnish!

The outfit I am featuring is from her final on-screen episode with Sylvester McCoy, the last episode before Doctor Who went off the TV for another 18 years or so.

Image borrowed from:
https://bradleybasement.wordpress.com/sci-fi/doctor-who/doctor-who-timelines/the-doctors-timelines-index/the-seventh-doctors-timeline/survival-tv/

It features her ubiquitous black bomber jacket, adorned with patches and pins and the back has an applique patch of her nickname, Ace.  She wears a dark pink v neck top, black trousers and boots, a school tie round her waist, dangly earrings and her hair worn with the sides up.

And over to my version:

I started with a pink top. Admittedly the wrong colour and material but I was going with what I had. I did have better coloured tops but this one is a more similar shape. It's my top from my Peri, Attack of the Cyberman, cosplay.

It's the black ASOS trousers that are my most hardworking TARDIS Tuesday item (getting very tight!) - they need no other introduction.  Clarks men's boots. I wore a pair of dangly dalek earrings which I embarassingly found the other day. My work colleague Tracy bought them for me for my 40th birthday and the Etsy seller sent them but somehow I didn't realise that this envelope hadn't ever been opened- I thought it was an old one and I was going through some old envelopes, which I keep to reuse, and there they were!!!

I didn't have a stripy tie. I thought I had one but I couldn't find it so I admit it, I was taking some stuff round to the charity shop and I found this one for 50p and thought I'd buy it to add to this outfit when I wore it on Friday!

My black bomber jacket was bought around a year ago from the same charity shop and cost me the princely sum of £2.25.  Well, it recently had a makeover from the wonderful Ang!!!!

Didn't she do an amazing job making this applique patch for the back of it! Even better, she used materials from her great stash! She has made me some amazing custom cosplay pieces over the years but this one is one of her finest! I love it!

I don't really want to add lots of patches and pins to the jacket because I like it plain, and also it becomes an extremely costly endeavour. I'd be worried I'd lose pins and I want to be able to wear it regularly, though I may try and afix a new pin back to my Blue Peter competition winner's badge so I can add that. Yes, I legitimately have a Blue Peter badge. I enterered a competition to design a new character for Oscar's Orchestra and whilst I didn't win, my characters earnt me the position of one of 100 runners up out of 28,900 entries!  Much as I would have liked my characters, Frederica Flugal Horn and Cassius the Contrabassoon to appear in the cartoon, I was still incredibly proud of my badge!

I love wearing my hair like this, particularly when it is this length but I can't always wear it like this when cycling and I only do my hair at the start of the day, not through the day, ending up looking like I've been through a hedge backwards, so there's no chance of me redoing my hair at school!

I really like this outfit and if I had a slightly less tight pair of trousers (I HAVE SOME SOMEWHERE!!!), I would really enjoy wearing this!

What do you think?

Big thank to Ang for another brilliant TARDIS Tuesday collaboration!!! And, do go and check out her hilarious blog post today about lozenges which I prompted!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday - Sarah Jane Smith from The Hand of Fear

This week, for TARDIS Tuesday, I am going with a Classic Who look again and it's the FIRST time for this outfit!  It comes from iconic companion, Sarah Jane Smith from her final Classic Who episode- The Hand of Fear.  Let's look at the inspiration:

Images borrowed from:
https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/sarah-jane-smith-the-hand-of-fear/

Elisabeth Sladen wore:

Red and white striped dungarees with side ties, red piping and 3 stars.

Red long-sleeved top

Red sneakers with white shoe laces

Red and white striped socks.

Before I go onto my outfit, I read this article with explains why this outfit was adopted! Did YOU know about the vicious, biting ladybirds???

Sarah Jane's iconic "Andy Pandy" dungarees in "The Hand of Fear" — a style of dress adopted by women in Summer 1976 as a result of a freak heatwave and an invasion of vicious, biting ladybirds, requiring breezy but full-body coverage (really. In particular, note the drawstrings around Sarah's ankles, keeping the trouser legs sealed from insects that would have been able to get up bell-bottoms). The heat, the ladybirds and the fashion trend were all swept away by a sudden downpour of rain that swamped Britain just as the first episode of "The Masque of Mandragora", the story immediately preceding "The Hand of Fear", was being broadcast on television.

 

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FashionDissonance  

And here is my version:

Firstly, I have the wonderful Ang Almond to thank for this outfit, as mentioned in my previous post.  She, her imagination, adaptability and sewing skills plus her wonderful, whizzy embroidery machine, are responsible for this outfit.  She talks about how she adapted these in her post at the link above- do show your appreciation by visiting her post!

I found a red and white striped lightweight jumpsuit on Vinted. It was originally £3 when I looked but by the time I'd gone to buy it, it had been reduced twice to £2 plus £2.89 postage.  It originally had wide legs, no piping and skinny tie-top straps.  Ang repositioned the shoulder ties to the sides and used some incredibly well-matching binding to make new straps with buckles.  She then added the piping and used her whizzy embroidery machine to make the stars and then hand-sewed them on as well as adding elastic to the ankles. I am truly astounded by how amazing they are!  She also sent me detailed instructions via Whatsapp of how to adjust the straps as I wasn't sure how!

I realised that I don't have a long-sleeved, red cotton top to wear underneath it but what I DID have was a red jumper I first used for a Yaz Khan outfit that I could wear underneath.  Love a bit of a cosplay reuse!  In terms of the shoes and stripy socks, again, I realised that I could use a couple of Clara items.  I had a pair of high-top cut out trainers from New Look that I used for her Oswin outfit and the socks that go with those.  They're not super accurate but I am not bothered!

I decided to try and make an alternative, Summer-version from what I had too so I wore a red Clement Ribiero pointelle sweater instead which also works!

Had a go at recreating the picture above.

Oooh, I almost forgot, in the duo picture, I am holding a labradorite pendant in place of Eldrad's ring which is part of the plot in the story. "Eldrad must live!"

I am really so excited to have these dungarees. I didn't think this would be an outfit I'd ever be able to recreate and these will be perfect to wear at my Music Camp too- practical for camp yet chic and light! Last Summer, in tribute to the organiser of music camp, who died last year, loads of people wore dungarees for a photo. Loads of people own them but were asked to bring some to wear, if they had any, as he always used to wear dungarees around camp! Green or claret ones usually!

I hope all is well with you!

Are you a fan of dungarees? Do you own any? Have you ever worn any? What are yours like?

This is my 2nd pair as I bought lilac linen ones last Summer but apart from that, I haven't worn them since I was about 6. I had a pink corduroy pair and I got told off in Infant assembly at school for an honest mistake, so I've associated dungarees for most of my life, with getting told off!

x