The fate of a dress...

I am quite particular about clothes; I have said before, I like certain things from certain places and have been known to covet a dress for months. If I really, really like it, I will chalk up all sorts of elaborate reasons why it must be mine and have been known to asset-strip our house and sell on eBay in an effort to earn to secure some item or another. It rarely backfires and I have got to the point where I am so sure of an item's suitability that I then keep it for years. I have dresses in my wardrobe that all have a story; I recall each purchase and keep each dress for years and years.

via pretty stuff

Playing in this fatalistic dance most recently is a velvet evening dress from Sienna Miller's own line twenty8twelve. I spotted it last year and could not afford it. I knew I would love it and it would love me, but at the time it was not a possibility. Then I forgot all about it and the seasons changed and that velvet dress was no longer at the forefront of my mind. Now the weather has turned and again velvet seems appropriate. This is where the immediacy of e-commerce takes my breath away. I remember a time when there was no Internet; there was no way to track anything down unless you had seen it, locally, with your own eyes. So google found the dress and wait, it was in the sale (it's so last season, you see). There was only one left. It was in my size. Need I go on? That dress was meant to be mine...

...said dress...

So it's on order - a leap of faith as I have never seen it in the flesh. I just know that it's my cuppa tea. And most of all I like that it took me a year to be able to get it. There has to be a life lesson in there somewhere.

I write this somewhat self consciously in the knowledge that the debate (battle) of differing opinion rages on whether serious and intelligent women can be interested in fashion. Are dresses just frippery? Does wanting this particular dress make me less of a serious person? Does this sort of dress-coveting make me vacant or shallow? These are the questions...but meantimes I'll be waiting for the postman...

via pretty stuff

A day spent...

A day spent. School drop off. After I went on a long run - using my favourite and most relied-upon route. I run around the roads where I grew up (one advantage of living in the same town for over 30 years; I know the way everywhere). I passed the theatre in my town where they were unloading sets. I passed the University and observed students piling in for their lectures. I ran on; pondering the days when I used to go to lectures, my attendance usually prompted by my friend Nikki, who was way more conscientious than I and could probably still recite our English Literature timetable, even now. I passed my doctor's surgery, then my childhood home, through the avenue of chestnut trees, leaves and conkers crunching underfoot.

via crush cul de sac

Home. A dog walk with my friend and new doggie partner-in-crime (she has my puppy's sister) around the fields. We discussed the single-worst-ever dinner party she attended at the weekend. Why would a host say the attire is 'informal' when she herself opens the door wearing a cocktail dress??! Nothing worse than turning up under-dressed.

Osteopath visit. My pain issue still not better, oh how I wish it were. It's very, very slow progress. I am developing patience unlike I have ever exhibited before.

A condensed shopping trip to salve my frustrations...where I purchased a short skirt not dissimilar to one I owned when I was 19. Is this a sign?

via crush cul de sac

School pick-up and home again. Homework hour. Where I established that I really can not do maths. English however; I managed.

A part showing of the film 'Mary Poppins' before their bed. A spoonful of sugar, helps the medicine go down.

Bubble and Squeak for dinner, as is Autumn's tradition. A Sunday roast must be followed by a Monday Bubble and Squeak. It is the law of our house.

And so my day was spent. You know how people ask: can the minutiae of someone's day really be of any interest to the masses? I do consider when I write this; really, who cares? But then I think of that line in 'You've Got Mail' and my small life...so good night, dear void!

Things of beauty...giveaway day two!

I have always had an affliction - I love to shop. I like to get new things. My Dad was an airline pilot and when I was a child, he used to return from his route with party dresses from America; with puffed sleeves and frills = big impact in my little world.

I was that child who pined for brand new, red, patent Mary Janes. To this day that feeling of excitement of taking a package or bag of newly purchased items home persists. It is an affliction. I wish I could get over it. But sometimes you just have to accept who you are. It is shallow. Clothes and shoes are not everything in life, for sure. But they are nice aren't they?!

I do maintain a life-long search for the perfect pair of red shoes, the perfect LBD, the perfect antiqued brown leather belt. Obsessed? Yep, pretty much. Over the years I have had some partners in this crime; they know who they are but they are - the friends who I still email with links to online shops where I am considering a purchase! For me, it's all about the little details; those things that make your heart beat just that little bit faster.

So this week's things of beauty starts with the incredible face of Natalie Portman; I want to see 'Black Swan' when it comes but I am also scared to; horror is so not my cup of tea! I am taking Boo to the ballet this weekend to see 'The Nutcracker'. It's an annual tradition. Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the giveaways! Keep scrolling down...

...breath-taking Natalie Portman...

...love the short retro veil...photograph by Elizabeth Messina

...the delectable Blake Liveley...

 

 

...so simple, the winged eye, the pale lips..

 

...detailing by Emerson Made...

...'today, she thought as she looked at the map, we shall go here!'

...a feast of bow ties!

...such a cutie!

...the original: Brigitte Bardot...

simple monochrome dressing...via Dust Jacket Attic

Emma Gordon clutches...gorgeous detailing!

So the next giveaway of my blog birthday week is a little bit of that shopping happiness...

A HANDMADE 'GEORGIA' CLUTCH BAG BY EMMA GORDON, LONDON IN THE COLOUR OF YOUR CHOICE...

To be in with a chance of winning one of these, you simply need to be a follower of my blog and leave me a comment saying which colour you would pick! 
Closes midnight Sunday 9th January.

see the choices here...ivory, silver, lemon, berry, blue, peach, navy, lime, fuchsia, turquoise, taupe, purple, gunmetal, leopard, champagne, black...

I have had such sweet comments as part of this giveaway week, so thank you so much; without you...well, without you I am just someone who posts their thoughts on the web for no apparent reason!  

Do come back for more in a day or two...

Here's what I think...

Quick fire: Here's what I think:

Ageing gracefully?
I wish I was entirely fine with this process. It's one of life's inevitabilites. Fighting it, ultimately doesn't work. There are elements of it that are life-affirming and wonderful; experience is beauty, but oh how I wish it just didn't happen. That it wasn't quite so brutal. My Mum, who is the ultimate role model for everything; she is AWESOME, has aged beautifully. She is at-one. I love and emulate that. And isn't this image just beautiful?

Shopping as favourite?
For me, nothing like going into a shop and seeing lots of things that make my heart go pitter-patter. I wish I wasn't quite so shallow and that the things that made me heart beat fast had more substance than a pretty dress. But that's how I am - have been the same since the age of 5 (but then it was pink and white candy-striped dungarees that caught my eye).

Should mothers work?
Whatever gets you through the day. Such a fiercely personal choice. First one must look at why mothers work - what is it that motivates them? From my observations on this, it's not all it seems; the motivations are wide, varied and unexpected. Understanding that choice must come first before any judgement is made about whether it's right or wrong.

The medical profession?
I have always had the utmost faith in the medical profession. I respect doctors enormously, in a similar way to lawyers. Clever, dedicated people. However in recent dealings with the medical (dental) profession I have been left wanting. How come they don't know all the answers? Have they not devoted years of study to finding out why something goes wrong with the human body? I am a specialist in my job - if someone asks me a question that I don't know the answer to, I go away and find out. I don't just send them away to cope with it. The older I get the more I find that there are few straight-forward answers in medicine. This bothers me.

Pushy parenting?
Should children be pushed academically and in, for example, sport? Should children be made to sit exams? I think, sometimes yes. Life has tests, why should we pretend in childhood that tests don't exist? We can help reduce the number of tests (I am speaking metaphorically about all tests children face; be they mathematics, getting through playtime, being in a school production, running a race) but at the end of the day, is it not better to prepare children to know how to deal with some pressure? The trick is not too much pressure and to not erode or deface the relationship they have with their parents by making success synonymous with unconditional love and respect. I have seen pushy parents in action and it's not pretty. Still working out how I feel about this one...

Cooking a meal from scratch every night?
Ready-made meals; what Jamie Oliver hates. I cook a fair amount, most nights I make a meal from fresh ingredients, from scratch. It is time-consuming and often I find it enormously tedious but I do it because it matters. I also periodically test my children on whether they know what a butternut squash looks like vs a chilli. I can't bear the thought that some children don't know what a potato is unless it comes in the form of chips. I think they have to see me cook; not just put a plastic packet in the oven.

images via are so happy

Going to bed at 8.30pm?
For adults, not children. I am all for it. For children, the earlier the better ;-)

Having the right shoes?
Yep, it does matter. To me.

Making a good cheese sauce?
I find the most important thing is to whisk the roux with the milk, briskly; a brisk whisk if you will. I also find that I do it with a smile on my face as I think (always) of my friend L who commented that her bottom wobbled when making a cheese sauce. I find the smile helps the consistency ;-)

...looks just like this my kitchen...go Gwyneth...

Still musing...

 Inside the mind of Lou...today:

Even though I try really hard (honest I do), I get seduced by the contents of the Toast catalogue every single season.

Is it strange/wrong that the prospect of two week's entertaining my children on my own unnerves me?

I like to wrap birthday presents in brown paper and raffia string.

There are moments when chatting with my best of friends that I realise...yep, she really does know me inside out. Those moments are the best...

Details matter to me; I notice things like ribbons, buttons and zips; if they are not quality I can't buy the item.

My wardrobe veers dramatically between classic preppy and quirky bohemian.

I have a sneaking suspicion I generally manage to get any conversation back to something that is relevant to something that has happened to me. Does that secretly mean that I think my life experience is the most validated kind and look for it in everyone else?

Given the choice I would always choose vegetables over meat, yet am not vegetarian - is this a missed opportunity?

Words like compote, gingham, mellowed, hessian please me. Does this mean I aspire to live in cabin in the woods making jam?

I conduct elaborate arguments in my mind for and against things - constantly weighing up each side of everything, be it whether I should buy that dress (usually yes), to whether I make my kids eat enough healthy food (usually no).

Does it make me a cliche that I walk in to the newly opened Cath Kidston shop in my hometown and genuinely think I could find a use for a union jack pin cushion - even though I can't sew!

Cath Kidston

Rock and roll lifestyle? I love hot water bottles, log fires, pressed sheets, candlelight on Sundays, early nights when it's raining outside.

I often wonder...am I the only one like me?

all images bar one from Toast

Today's toast...

If I am totally honest I am feeling a little down today. I always want to write something upbeat or if not that, then thought-provoking, but today neither sentiment is springing forward. I suspect I am in the come-down following the closure of the super-stressy project. I'm ever so slightly lonesome as my husband is off jet-setting. Even a kitchen table chat from P did not fully lift my spirits. So. I went online and ordered this sundress from Toast and that helped abit...

What I want is to fast forward to sandy toes and sun-warmed skin and the scent of suncream. Lie-ins and a bacon fry-up for breakfast or being out running, early morning, before the sun is up. Holiday rules - ice cream any time of day. My husband's best Moscow Mule cocktails at the end of the day, full of crushed ice. Portuguese grilled chicken, piri piri style.

Incidentally I spoke to my friend D on Skype today. It's the first chance I have had to catch up with her in recent months and she lives in Netherlands...infact when I check my blogger statistics she accounts for my entire readership in that part of the world. I miss her so much at the moment. I know the world is a small place but she just doesn't feel near enough. So we Skyped and talked about the merits of shopping from Toast. If in doubt, shop from Toast...

Thinking about...

Have I got much to say? Some days, not so much. Still as I potter about my mind buzzes with things to do and consider. Such as, I bought this top from Aubin Wills...yep it's just like about four others that I have, but still, I likey.

Our summer holiday plans have shifted slightly, owing to some stuff with my in laws and how they have decided, basically, to come with us. Sooo, I am looking to book a place for our little sub-family to hide out in for some of the time. This involves going further afield to our normal well-trodden path in Portugal. I am seizing the day and choosing somewhere completely different on the West Coast.

Boo is having a bit of an anxious phase at the moment - not sure why. It makes me regard her like some anthropological experiment as these facets of her personality develop and I am at a loss to see where they came from and where they are going. Is that a nine year old thing? She doesn't even seem to know what it's about herself. Maybe some days are just blue days for no real reason?

via are so happy

My son's teacher has suggested that I should spend more time with him concentrating on reading and writing. He is five. Homework is not really a priority for him. However I can see that his hand-writing is not quite the same as that of his peers, when there is a class display. The fact is: he would rather be kicking a ball. This inevitable truth about my boy means that I foresee a pattern of teacherly interventions that will leave me struggling to get him more interested in books, less interested in rugby.

via we heart it

I've got to deal with the mental block I have about doing the house admin. I have piles and piles of papers in every room. It is like a siege of paper that is rivalling even the ironing pile - and we know what that looks like. What is the answer? Get an incinerator? Instead I get seduced by items like this from Cox and Cox, as if they will solve the paper siege by making it look pretty...err, I think I'm delusional! :-)

Words of wisdom?

It's half term this week, so time spent with the Boos...passing the time, chewing the cud. I spent a good portion of the day trying to teach my daughter the value of money. This stems from her getting a £20 note for her birthday; the first time she has got her hands on genuine cash rather than pennies of pocket money. This £20 has literally been burning a hole in her 'Hello Kitty' purse since the day it arrived. It is simply too much for her to have it sitting there with all of it's endless possibilities of purchasing power. Toys, clothes, more toys...more clothes...

I tried to explain that £20 doesn't actually buy that much, maybe one toy, maybe one item of clothing with a bit of change. We talked about value and cost. I tried to explain the concept of retail profit (no, they don't give the money to charity) but lost her there. I was suggesting we opened a bank account and they looked after the money - heaven forbid they actually saved it for her. But that was just like having a large, nameless, faceless 'Hello Kitty' purse. She did not see the benefit.

I tried every tactic I knew to get her to see that just spending it on the first bit of plastic 'toot' she saw was meaningless and drew on many examples of previous purchasing decisions that had in fact been a let-down once she got them home.

I realised that after this talk on the merits of saving money, that I had done two things: i) made her feel sad and guilty about her money and ii) exhibited my own slightly warped attitudes to money to my unwitting nine year child! I hardly lead by example; she spies those hidden carrier bags in my wardrobe!

It was an example of those times when you try, as a parent, to distill things down for your kids in the hope that something will stick. Some gem of wisdom will make its way into their psyche and lodge there, ready for later use. I look back on nuggets that my Mum passed to me. Never wear grey washed-out underwear. Long legs are better than big boobs (I suspect here she was just trying to reduce my envy of my big bosomed friends). Don't waste time worrying about something that might never happen.

Really am I just passing on my own desire that my haphazard spending habits aren't passed to her by some sort of osmosis? My childhood was spent shuttling between divorced parents so there was alot of retail therapy to soothe the comings and goings. I always felt this set me up to associate shopping with happiness. Direct link. But Boo is not part of that particular family dynamic. So what will be her excuse? Who knows?!

All I know is I think it's time for me to Lighten Up (with a capital 'L', capital 'U') so we went to the Farmer's Market and bought some punnets of beautiful local strawberries...and that bit of spending made it all feel better... ;-)

What to wear?

Oh, what to wear? How to decide each day? What makes good style? When growing up, I would spend long summer holidays in Denmark. When shopping there I'd see that the children's clothes were quirky, unusual; fundamentally different to the ones at home. My Mum would always say '...don't you want to be a bit different to everyone else?' Back then I would agree, embracing the difference, but then we would get home and I would feel mildly ashamed of my unusual clothes, I could not carry it off. I just wanted to fit in and be like everyone else. Of course, I grew up and realised that being different is not a bad thing and clothes are a way to project yourself, depending on your mood.

Somehow that echo of my Mum's advice sounds out now and permeates the way I shop and choose clothes. For me, being different is very much tied up in my personal style. Yet I broadly conform to the standard 'uniforms' of my Mummy and Work lifestyles. But I am always looking for the little quirks that change an outfit from standard to non-standard.

That eye for detail makes me hanker after certain things...soft, muted cotton scarves, red shoes, the 'right' blue denim, a statement coat, the perfect belt, the just-so floral print...whatever it might be! I am constantly scanning for key items in any shop, like a magpie looking for shiny baubles.

It's so in-built in me that I do struggle to understand when women say they are not interested in clothes. I want to say 'why on earth not?' There is just so much to love, so much to desire, such a heady happiness of 'getting it right'. But I do wonder, is that just me? Am I the distinct minority to be saddled with this strange impulse to think about, covet and aquire clothes, shoes and handbags? It's not even necessarily fashion - although I love that too; it's just clothes...dressing up...creating outfits. I make it sound as if I am a complete clothes horse; really not, I am in my PJs by 9pm most nights. Nevertheless I still love clothes. I don't think I am alone in this litle obsession...but you never know...

Why shoes?

I was one of those girls who, as a child, would get a new pair of shiny mary-janes and would go to sleep with them, pretty much, on my pillow. Shoes and I? We have always been close as close can be. Nothing like new shoes.

Not much has changed now that I am grown - still love shiny shoes, still keep them in my sight when they are brand new; you know, just loitering around the bedroom in case I need to catch a glimpse. I have many - far too many I'm sure. I did toy with the idea of getting all of my shoes out and taking a photo, just to see the scale things, but then I thought better of it. Did I need to provide my husband/conscience with photographic evidence of my addiction the next time we have one of those 'stop shopping' talks?

However this makes it sound as if all I do is buy shoes and really, honestly I don't. I am a very selective shoe shopper (the same can be said for handbags; still having the guilt sweats over last week's frivolous red, patent, boutique purchase). I covet shoes. I lust after them. I have them feature in mini-movies in my mind's eye, where they guest-star with certain outfits. Shoes are the best supporting actress. 

In reality, with my lifestyle, I live in flats - ballet shoes in summer and riding-style boots in winter. But that doesn't stop the adoration for others of a more exotic variety. And at work, especially if I have a big meeting, I will bring out the heels. I am constantly on the look-out for the perfect pair of red ballet shoes, the perfect brown boot, the perfect incandescent strappy heel, the perfect black court and so it goes...

So when there are no shoes...I get shoe blues... ;-)