TARDIS Tuesday Cold War 5

 Hi!

TARDIS Tuesday features an outfit that I have attempted or  worn 5 times on this blog. It is worn by 11th and 12th Doctor companion and my personal New Who favourite, Clara Oswald.

I last wore this outfit here in July 2019 (& I actually wore the outfit out in public about a week later for our opera performance at music camp!) and it remains unchanged from that last version. I chose to wear it this week because I was looking for another dress which turned out to be sharing a hanger with this one.  I threw it on the floor in a hurry and this morning, when I got up (Sunday), thought I might as well wear it, since it was out anyway!

Let's have a look at it in one awful grainy shot and then a couple of promo shots:

IMage borrowed from Doctor Who role playing wikia

Image borrowed from this Pinterest but belongs to the BBC

It's glamorous, it's shiny and it gets covered up by a Soviet Naval jacket!

Here's me:

It's been 3 years since I last wore this and I've put on some weight since then. It was always V.E.R.Y tight then but now it is super tight!

It features the pale blue Vivienne Westwood Pannier dress which, despite, it being very tight, is such a beautiful fit.

I wear it with a navy blue cotton military-style jacket (which cost me £5 from eBay- this was out of the wardrobe too because I wanted to wear it for the Jubilee performance for our Trooping the Colour song on Friday).

The shoes, from Red or Dead, are lovely, but high and I only recently located them as they were hidden right in the middle under the spare bed.  The bag is a lovely one I have for weddings...although in practice, it's waaaay too small for me- I need a camel to hoik around the stuff I need!

You can see the dress alone here- this is how I wore it for our opera performance at music camp- we were supposed to be in 'wenchy' costumes. It seemed  most apt!

For your delectation (or horror?) I include a few attempts inside my kitchen, where I attempted to recreate Clara's "Ahrgh,I've just been covered head to toe in freezing cold water!"-look and a photo where she is wearing headphones! All not very successfully but at least they are a bit funny!

Hope you have had a good day!

xx

Ship ahoy!!

We ended up going out on a boat ride around Wallasea island fairly last minute!  Happily, since we were going to embark on a maritime journey, it was rather fortunate what I had chosen to wear that morning- it was already nautical!

Alas, this Lindybop dress feels dreadfully tight these days! Oh how I wish I had got a 10!!!

It was fun to wear such an outfit whilst wandering around million pound yachts!! Yes, there was one for sale that was £3million!  It's amazing how the other half live!

I've had a really nice weekend but more on that soon!  Was avoiding computer all weekend!

xx

Simple sailor

My love of nautical attire is well documented on this here blog (just check out the Sailor, Nautical, Naval tags for evidence)

I bought this Topshop jumper on my first visit to one of the 3 charity shops in the town I moved to over a year ago. It was a really happy purchase.  In fact, now I think about it. I've not bought MANY items from there but all of them have been really wanted ones, e.g. Emily and Fin button dress, Cath Kidston Stop Thief bag, Clara Oswald Topshop Diamond blouse, Clara Oswald Contrast checked mac and some great books!

This was my Sunday attire.  I missed the rail replacement bus (instead of train) to church and the trouble is, by the time the next one would have come, I would have been realllllly late for church as the next one wasn't for half an hour, it would take half an hour and then church is over a mile's walk from the station (Plus I already had 0.7mile walk from home). It's not ideal so I ended up going to a church in my local town that starts at 11am rather than 10. It's an old stone church, totally contrasting my 1960's built church, pretty church yard, traditional sung Eucharist with all hymns. It was a nice service and I enjoyed being somewhere different for a change.

These shoes are made by Toms who have a philanthropic approach to shoe-selling as they give one pair of shoes for everyone you buy to a street child somewhere. I bought them for CBC last Summer after finding them in TK Maxx for only £16 but after wearing them for a few months he decided he didn't like them so I wear them at the weekends sometimes.

Speaking of TK Maxx, I was rather pleased as we went to TK Maxx on Saturday to see if CBC could obtain some Red Nose goodies for school. He ended up spending a while mooching round buying himself a shirt. I went over to the men's shoe section and spied these Handmade Loakes brogues. They retail at £150 and I got them for £50 for CBC's birthday present. He had a pair as his wedding shoes but he's mashed them rather over the last few years for school so I bought him this new pair for best.

Also managed to get these amazing Pulsin Raw choc brownies for my Gluten, dairy free friend for her birthday.  I bought a box of them as a birthday present for my other Gluten free, dairy free friend for her birthday as I found them for £4 in Aldi once (a one off). She absolutely ADORED them and said she preferred them to her usual Nakd bars and went online and ordered a box of 20 of them.  They retail £4.50 for three of them online so I was chuffed to find a box of 3 for £2.49 in TK Maxx so got Anne 3 boxes. I told L, the aforementioned colleague and she promptly went off to the local TK Maxx and bought up their entire supply!  If you happen to have special dietary requirements (Sandra, Susie amongst others), it might be worth a look. They are dairy, wheat, gluten, soya, non-GM and vegan.

We also got a bottle of Organic Surge hand and body wash for £2 (usually at least £4.50) which is hard to find anywhere now. I do so like TK Maxx.

It was nice to buy things for others, particularly as one of my Lent fasts is from clothes, accessory, non-essential purchases for me.

I did leave out books though and I did manage to buy 2 more of the Kate Shackleton mysteries from the aforementioned charity-shop on my way back from church. I'd seen them a week ago but didn't buy them.

Finally, CBC showed me this adorable video. I WANT A SKUNK!!!!!

Are you an ardent TK Maxx visitor?

xx

Circumnavigating the UK - Day 10- Guernsey St Peter's Port

It struck me back in January writing my South Africa posts, that I never did finish my series on my cruise circumnavigating the UK. I did consider leaving it but since I had already put the photos into a blog post, that I would like to be able to read this in the future.

So forgive me for this being 7 months late...

We arrived at Guernsey and it was an anchorage so we had to sign up for tenders (boats) to the port.

Mum and I headed out fairly early but not amongst the first most eager beavers and found ourselves on land.  We didn't have any particular plan in mind, just decided to have a little explore and see what we could find.

I dressed suitably nautically in a Navy sailor top and striped skirt.

Although these photos don't look particularly bright, it was a warm and sunny day.

The marina was full of all sorts of sea-vessels.

Mum and I were both glad of our hats.

We decided to walk right away from the marina and explore in hope that we might find a beach to paddle on.  There seemed to be a sort of area with a lido created with the sea. It looked a bit deserted and none-too-salubrious but later when the sun really hotted up, we  saw children jumping in having lots of fun.

As we walked along, very soon, we came to signs for an Aquarium.  As a bit of respite from the sun, we opted to head in.

It was nice to see the different creatures within the Aquarium though it wasn't the most exciting place ever.

It is remarkably hard to photograph fish in that sort of lighting. These are the best of a rather shoddy lot.

This rather rotund fellow had really attractive sparkly scales which I wish I could have captured better.

These clown-fish are just so cartoonish, aren't they!!! Not surprised Nemo became one of those.

Not sure what this little fellow was, but he sure has an impressive set of whiskers!

This lizard was so still.  He turned his eye to look at me once but then just sat there as still as can be.

So many lizards..

After that, we headed to the kiosk nearby to buy some ice-creams and went and sat down by the cove.It was very stony and not really paddleable as there were lots of treacherous rocks, it is a pity.

At this point, I decided to hunt for seaglass and shells and created this arrangement.  Mum also looked for shells. We are always so content beachcombing. I could have done this for much longer.

I debated leaving it for passers-by as an art-gift but decided I liked my finds too much.  Sooo.... Mum and I decided to do a 5-minute beach collage to leave.

Mum made this delightful mermaid. I loved how she found flesh-coloured stones for her skin and seaweed for her hair.

I made a simple heart.

And then we left them for the public.

You can see that natural seawater lagoon I talked about earlier.

After this, we began a walk along the cliffs but Mum was rather tired so we headed into the town and found somewhere for milkshakes.  After this, we tried to find a paddling beach but it seemed we would have to walk for miles so she walked back to the boat and I mooched around for a bit in town.

Eventually, I joined Mum back on the boat and we went in the pool and jacuzzi on board. I had a great laugh chatting with a few people in there!  Lots of people were encouraged to come to the pool by our raucous laughing.

In some ways,  I wish we'd caught a bus to one of the glorious sandy beaches I heard tell of but our adventures were pleasant as they were.

That evening, we had a Gala dinner. I'll tell you more about that soon.

I'd like to visit Guernsey again.

Have you visited Guernsey?

xx

That quintessential navy staple!

 That combination of red, navy and stripes really does put one in mind of 'Anything goes' and the seafaring branch of the armed forces.

 It's a funny thing but as a teenager, it was NOT cool to tuck in ANY garments- leaving them hanging out, especially school shirts was the status quo. It has purely been the influence of blogging pals and their immaculate tucking-in skills that reconciled me to it again after all these years.  It also served to marginally hide the lack-of-ironing!

 Today, I took a gamble with resorting to summery clothes again for school and it paid off as my cardigan was off within 5 minutes of class time!

I started off the day sans headache and within an hour had developed one and it was only later after being in another classroom and I returned to that year 4 classroom that I noticed one of those nasty plugin fragrance things in the class (or it may have been something else but it SMELT of one!).  THEY give me a headache. I really loathe them- the nasty artificial smell. I know kids can be smelly sometimes but I would honestly rather put up with 'wet dog wet-playtime stench' than endure one of those things.  My Mum made me a room spray purely with spring water and a few essential oils which was good although even that made me a bit fussy! Is it just me or does anyone else react badly to the fragrance-makers

 Gratuitous shoe close-up of my Irregular Choice shoes shining gold in the sunshine!

Hope you had a good day.
xx

Sailor heart

What ho, tis I, Le Kez!

Hope that your day was successful and fun.

I had a slightly bizarrely successful afternoon which only resulted from me going off on a tangent!

In year 3, I went to teach a lesson. I was introducing the concept of Time Signatures - which would then lead into them getting the feel of time signatures, learning to conduct in those time signatures, listen to some music to identify time signatures and then answer some other comparison questions between 2 songs- Tomorrow the Fox and 'Didlan' (based on The Ashgrove folk tune).

Anyway, I introduced it by asking them what comes first on the stave in music (the treble clef).  I asked them what that told us (that it was a high-pitched instrument playing).  Then, as a reminder, I asked what the name of the clef was that means it's a low instrument (they dutifully answered 'Bass Clef') - I then added the Alto clef as a tangent which was greeted with "Cooooool!", "I love this!"  (??????)

I then started to say as a mere note aside, that a key signature comes next and somehow got into explaining key signatures, how they work, what sharps and flats are and what they mean etc' and somehow, they were highly enthusiastic about this and were really getting into this (I'm talking boys and girls who can be a bit disruptive) and were just amazed to be learning all this (I think I maybe did ok by starting the Alto clef comment by saying, "You don't need to know this, but I know some of you like knowing harder, extra information," which meant everyone wanted to be THAT person I was inferring) .  So we had this massive tangent on key signatures and sharps and flats and enharmonic equivalents and they were just bizarrely really with me on it!!  There was no distraction, no one who had to be called to order or made to face the correct way. We're talking a solid block of music theory!

When I introduced the time signatures, the delight of learning how to conduct and what conductors are really doing was a delight!! 

When they came to do the listening- everyone was totally focused.  Bizarre how that happens sometimes. I usually find them really hard work. That said though, they are quite a musical class- they are probably one of the best singing classes in the school.

Anyway, if you have survived that long and waffly tangent, well done, have a gold star, biscuit and a cup of tea, you deserve it!

I thought I'd share 2 pictures of two of my Charity shop purchases which featured in 'The Buyer's archive' post. The gorgeous Topshop sailor jumper from Sue Ryder and the heart skirt from Barnados!  Just needed the tiny addition of some navy knitted tights, gold Toms and my Punkypins Bee necklace and I was good to go! 

I love my new tree with its crops of daffodils! What will I do when they all die!?!? I've never quite had such a happy blogging posing spot!

xxx

Yet another sailor outfit!

Tis a bit of a cliche to go to the seaside dressed up as a sailor girl, but I did it anyway.

 In case you are wondering, the top is from Joules (mega sale last year), the skirt is ancient Primark (very tight!) and the raincoat (Seasalt Cornwall) with my beloved Doc martens.

Oh how wonderful it was to inhale that sea air again!

CBC and I visited Newton by the sea with J and though it was a blustery day, it was sunny. CBC and I walked towards Dunstanburgh castle.

Such bursting joy and yet tranquillity surge through my heart simultaneously in a fusion that shouldn't work yet do.  I don't care that I get messier and messier as the breeze laps at my hair because that is its overenthusiastic welcome.   The smell, even when none-too-pleasant has its place in the joy of the situation. The stumbling over uneven patches of sand and the avoidance of large piles of Bladderwrack seaweed, these are all parts of that wild experience.  The beaches in the north are wild, they are unforgiving at times, they lack Cornish and Southern prettiness, yet they have that menace and danger in them that their west-country counterparts have too.

There is a health and a rejuvenation in being blown around and hearing the compulsive returning of the tide. I find myself all too cross and grown-up at times but being here allows me to join in with my husband in fun antics.

Joy as he dashes up a slope and affecting crossness as he kicks sand into my shoes one too many times. Annoying but necessary in peeling back that grown-up and weary facade.

 I delight in my maritime companion with his ever-patient and loving nature.

Such joy to be back at sea. Whether dressed as a sailor or not!?

xxx