Umbrellas on the Sele

Thank you for your kind comments on my Photo Scavenger Hunt.  As you could probably tell, I was in Northumberland till Tuesday, now I am back!




Easter Sunday,  I had attended a joyful, packed Easter service at Hexham Abbey with my lovely Mother in law, J, and I was wearing the lovely birthday present, an Emily and Fin dress she had bought me (not shared on the birthday blog post as it hadn't arrived then).  She commented on how nice it looked at which point, I cheekily said, "In which case, you had better be my official photographer!".  She very gleefully (possibly tongue-in-cheek?)  said she'd be delighted!




I was really glad that the Abbey backs onto the Sele, a beautiful park in the centre of Hexham that has a delightful quaint old-feel about it.  We headed into there and she soon proved herself a great photographer, not impatient, suggesting different places and poses and we had a great laugh. I will definitely ask her again, she was very dilligent!





I should, at this point, say how much I liked the dress she chose for me. I like Emily and Fin because their dresses are 100% cotton,which I prefer SO much more to viscose and all those synthetic dresses around. I was delighted when she gave me this because I would never have chosen a tulip dress shape like this, being pear-shaped, I tend to favour looser skirt bottoms, so it was something different and since I'd given up shopping for Lent, was a welcome addition to my wardrobe!  Incidentally, my Father-in-law, the famous WOMOTM, bought me an ASOS voucher which I have, post-Lent, bought another Emily and Fin dress with! Watch this space.













The Sele is lovely and the sun was beautiful. It made a fun diversion on the way home.  We were even lucky enough to see a small patch of Bluebells too!








FYI, the jacket is thrifted Next, Cardie Primark, Shoes-Riedker, Umbrella- Tiger

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Today, I spent the day with my sister and my little Niece, K.  CBC dropped me off on his way to his piano exam and a very lovely time I had too.
We went swimming and I was astounded to discover my 5-year old niece is able to already swim lengths. She swam 10 lengths all in all as well as numerous widths. I am amazed that she has done this with my sister alone. I couldn't swim at all until I was 10 and only a lenght when I was 11!

We went back and had lunch, watched a dance show on DVD and then I played Hide and Seek with her. Let me tell you something sad I discovered as an adult. You are BIG! So much bigger than you are in your mind. You are not the size of a child anymore. All the places you could once squeeze into are now totally out of the question, you cannot fit in them.  You will put your back out if you try to contort yourself into position.  You move rather like a bulldozer, not the svelte cat-burglar you once were.  You run round in a panic trying to find somewhere to hide, SOMEWHERE you will fit, and end up behind doors. You look like a mountain hiding under the duvet and are instantly discoverable. The airing cupboard is no-go, behind the sofa is a joke, you feel like you're going to break your neck trying to get under the bed and move the speed of a snail, divans are your enemy.

The only advantage you have over the 5-year old is that you have learnt to breathe silently! Aha, one advantage!

Bye for now!
xx

I wore art

One of my favourite bloggy link-ups is the Style imitating art challenge with Jen, Salazar and Jess. I like it because I learn a bit each time I join in- I'm not very knowledgeable about art but I really enjoy it, so it enlightens me each time.  Plus it makes me look at the picture a bit closer- helps me notice common features between paintings and it's a bit like creating a collage- trying to match up my wardrobe to what is in the picture.  That said, I've dutifully sent my pictures to the girls every fortnight (except this week! Epic fail) but failed to put them into a blog post each time.  So here are 6 weeks worth of paintings and attempted outfit styling!

Jess chose Bonfire, by Andrew Wyeth.  I loved the smoke in this one, the contrast between the dark, murky background and the fruits and circle of light coming from the middle. 

As you can probably see, I chose to represent the dark background in my top and cardie and represent the autumnal fruits and the circle of light in my skirt and the blue silk scarf, with its light floaty fabric represented the smoke.

The next one was “Tamarack Swamp, Algoma”, by Canadian artist Lawren Harris. I adored the mixture of colours, pattern, foreground and background- I'd like to have this on my wall.



  I really liked this one but struggled with what to do with it.  I then chose to interpret the green, purply hill as my starting point with this through this maxi-skirt which I chose the material for and had made in Bali- you can't see it has little purple splodges on it.  I then carried this green into my hat and added the mustard hairband as contrast.  The sky was represented through this stripy top and the shoes (recently reheeled! Grrr, it cost as much as the shoes originally cost!) to show those furry beigy ferny things (I have such a way with vocabulary ya?) It's not the most er- well put together of outfits, but never mind- it was comfy!




Finally, my favourite was “Spring Rain” of Art Deco artist Erté.  I really liked this one and there was LOADS I could have done with it- trousers in this stripe and shade, polka dot trousers, ruffle blouses and more.


Instead, I chose to wear this blue dress which has a large scale circular pattern to show the umbrella and added this little felt brooch made by my friend Liz which is exactly like the umbrella! The necklace (from my Nan) was a further extenion of this.  Polka dots represented through a hairband; the yellow hair of the lady was nodded to by the belt and the wonderfully ruffly neck of the lady was created through the lace-edged cardigan, white patterned brogues, material flower earrings and of course my wonderful ruffly white umbrella! Navy background is seen in the leggings.



How would you have interpreted these?


Speaking of umbrellas- I'm in a pretty desperate and sad situation on that front (well, sad and desperate in comparison to my previous status- which was very lucky. Not sad and desperate in the sense of all things sad and desperate).  I luckily owned four GOOD, expensive umbrellas- 2 of which were gifts (one the above), a black ruffly one (pictured in that link with best charity shop purchase ever!),  a polka dot Cath Kidston Kensington umbrella (pictured here, where I'm doing the Singing in the rain jump) and a floral birdcage Cath Kidston umbrella (CBC is holding it in this post).  Well, back in November, I noticed that the black and polka dot umbrellas were missing. I have NO idea where they went! Did we leave them at one of the two weddings we went to? Not even sure if we took them? But they've definitely gone which is absolutely infuriating!  So then I was left with the white one and the Cath floral one. BUT, about a month ago, I accidentally left the Cath one on a train! I realised as soon as I'd got to the top of the stairs and phoned Lost Property and all that but some ROTTER took my lovely umbrella and now I'm down to the white one. I don't want to use this on a daily basis as I don't want it to get all grubby and minging! Where are my umbrellas?!!?!?!

Hope you are all well. xx

The coat in the window!

Recently I went to gorgeous Wallingford in Oxfordshire for a friend's birthday.  It was a beautiful day and Wallingford is a truly gorgeous place which I'd love to visit for longer than the time it takes for a birthday meal.  As we were leaving the town to make the sojourn home, we pulled up at a red traffic light and naturally, I glanced to my left to find an Oxfam in front of my eyes.  With the most perfect looking vintage coat (or so I thought, rightly so!) in the window.  It was a Sunday, we had to go.  There was no chance I was going to get it (nor did I need it but that's beside the point)

Somehow, I found myself texting my friend curiously mentioning it and wondering if perhaps she might be passing said Oxfam tomorrow.  She laughingly returned a message saying that she would be walking into town and would have a look.  A phone call the next day, to check on size told me that I had a good eye apparently, as it was a mint condition Jaeger vintage coat that the shop ladies hastened to add was a really good quality buy.

Finally, coat and I met this Satuday at my birthday lindy-hop outing, where K came up to celebrate my birthday!  It was just as perfect as I had briefly, for 2 seconds (really, it was only that long- the lights changed) viewed it and fits me perfectly.  Pure wool, it kept me wonderfully warm at church on Sunday morning.


I teamed it with my other designer charity shop vintage recent find- the Aquascutum skirt, an H&M cardigan, Warehouse via Charity-shop blouse with vintage pressed flower brooch, Hush-puppies (totally forgot I had these! Thanks mice for making me sort out under the chest of drawers!) and Primark binocular case bag and I felt achieved quite a pleasing (if unironed!) ensemble for me!



We had the most aaaaaaaaaamazing time on Saturday night, it's literally the first time in years that I have had so many people celebrate my birthday (if ever!) - I had one or two incredible dances, somehow managing to get asked to dance by a couple of experts (who I am sure totally regretted it!), lots of my friends danced and laughed lots!  On Sunday evening, we went for our first private lesson with Simon Selmon, Mr Swing dance UK which was great, he really ironed out some teething difficulties- he's a great teacher, very kind and helpful!  I am so excited and can't wait for our next lesson!  If ever there was an less noble incentive not to do any shopping, it is definitely is saving for dance classes as we can only afford a few!  We've booked up for the Brighton Lindy festival in April which I am totally excited about!  Now got to find somewhere to stay that isn't expensive (eeek!).  Totally excited and psyched by lindy possibilities and the hope/yearning to get better/get somewhere with it!!!



Linking up to Visible Monday with Patti at Not dead yet style and a whole host of other lovelies in gorgeous attire!



Ooh, and here are two lovely shots of Wallingford.  This is the Thames and there are all sorts of lovely quaint shops and wonderful walks (and a castle!)





Linking up to Claire Justine

Cultural grey-out

Sometimes, I sigh with despair when I look at pictures of me! But sometimes, I quite like them!! Despite the grey, I felt very visible, confident and happy about myself in this get up so I am linking with the lovely Patti at Visible Monday!  Forgive the overload of photos, I know they all look the same but I actually liked them despite the bush of hair!!!

A brief sojourn around Trafalgar square:  I have such affection for this place.  I have paddled in those fountains on several occasions and had water fights with random people. (in fact, in fountains in several major Europeon  cities!) Once, I had to sit through an entire church service at All Souls in damp clothes after stupidly getting wet!














The fourth plinth:  I am still gutted that the interactive organ which doubles as an ATM didn't win instead of this one- I voted for the latter!


My gorgeous photographer:


Outfit details:
Hat (Christmas gift)
Umbrella (Christmas gift)
Cashmere rose sweater (Midienette, Florence: present from CBC)
Scarf and skirt (Primark)
Blazer (ASOS heritage)
Tights (Tescos)
Shoes (Irregular choice)

Verse of the day:
"Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be men and women of courage, do everything in love,"
I will try again and again, though I feel I don't always manage to communicate that love.

*If you know what the blog-title is referring to, you are obviously an ethnomusicologist!!!