Your guard’s down and all of your timing has gone. You were patient ’til the earth swallowed the last of the sun

 Cardi: thrifted. Top: Wallis. Skirt: Vintage. Shoes: thrifted. Necklace: Tatty Devine

I think at this point, all I can do is paraphrase a Facebook status update from earlier in the day: gods and goddesses preserve us from people ‘just being helpful’.

Put it in your heart where tomorrow shines

Shrug: thrifted. Top: Wallis. Skirt: vintage. Boots: Duo via eBay. Brooch: www.mockinghorse.co.uk

For some reason, this skirt is one of the items of clothing to which I tend to be drawn when I’m feeling lively and flirtatious. It’s got an inbuilt petticoat, so it feels pleasingly swishy as I stalk across the office.

Sometimes, it’s the simple things that keep you bouyant.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to search for more swishy vintage skirts!

The sweet love between the moon and the deep blue sea

Top: New Look via eBay. Skirt: Vintage. Holdups: Wolford. Shoes: Hush Puppies, a gift. Necklace: www.mockinghorse.co.uk

I thought my last couple of blog posts have held a touch of the blues about them, which isn’t really reflective of how I’m feeling at the moment. I may have been feeling a little blah about my outfits lately (though it’s hard to feel blah in Awesome Holdups, swishy skirt and red shoes!), but other than that I’m feeling really positive about 2012.

It feels like some difficult situations have been, if not dealt with, had things put in place for the dealing, and I feel like I’ve handled my part in those things infinitely better than I would have done ten or even five years ago.

So, bring it on, 2012!

Your lips look delicious

Jumper: H&M. Skirt: Vintage. Boots: Duo via eBay. Belt: thrifted. Brooch: www.mockinghorse.co.uk

Aaand we’re back up to date! I’ve only one day left in the office after today, so I’m feeling slightly celebratory. Or at least, that’s the only excuse I can come up with for my purchase of this on the way home:

Always be courteous to the ladies

Top: New Look via eBay. Skirt: vintage. Shoes: thrifted. Holdups: Wolford. Necklace: www.mockinghorse.co.uk

Today seemed to be a day for compliments – my skirt, holdups and shoes all came in for comment, and I apparently looked like something out of My Fair Lady. Not sure I quite compare on that front, but it was nice to hear, especially as I’ve been feeling a bit unimaginative with my outfits lately, in part due to the reduced wardrobe brought on by being smaller than this time last year and having the festive season to pay for.

But…

I popped to the shop at lunch and bought some mini brownies and muffins for everyone, and the first thing I heard when I took one? ‘ooh, you’ll get fat one day!’

Grrr!

A) Is that the most terrible thing that could possibly happen to me as I age?
B) Is it likely to result from one mini brownie once in a blue moon?
C) Is my body any of your business, random officemate?

Clearly not. And the thing that annoys me most of all is that comments like that are considered a normal thing, meant as pleasant office conversation. Happens all the time, in all sorts of situations, and very often it’s from other women. I know the commenter didn’t mean anything by it, and I’m not angry at or offended by her personally. But. The same thing wasn’t said to any of my male colleagues, and friends have reported similar body-policing comments being directed at their young daughters in a way that they don’t see with their sons, who seem to be allowed to be ‘sturdy’ more than daughters when over a certain, very young, age).

It is not your job to ‘helpfully’ remind me that too much high-fat, low nutritional value food is bad for me. Not even if you’re throwing in an anecdote involving the fact that you were slimmer as a younger person than you are now. I’m a grown-up – I already know that. As it happens, I maintain a pretty healthy diet overall – and I count the odd brownie or muffin as part of that, because pleasure is healthy. None of that is any of your business, though. I am quite capable of maintaining my body without your assistance, and I will maintain it to the standards I deem appropriate.

Fuck off with your commentary.

I know it. I think I know it from a heaven.

Jumper: H&M. Skirt: Vintage. Boots: Duo via eBay. Belt: thrifted. Necklace: Anna Lou

It’s amazing the difference just one extra day off work makes! I must have been ready for it, as all my plans to finish my languishing Beignet skirt and start the stories that I’ve had in my head for a while completely dissolved in the face of the opportunity to just relax and rest my brain a bit.

I did, though, get the opportunity to spend time with two lovely friends from an old workplace, with whom I’m so pleased I’m still in touch. And I curled my hair for the occasion (wavy hair is my default Fancy Do, but in this case my hair was looking more than usually limp and it was a handy remedy!), resulting in a make-up-free pic currently doing duty as my profile pic all over the place:

Taken under my knitting light, because I’m that glamorous

Change everything you are and everything you were – your number has been called

 Top: Wallis. Skirt: Vintage. Belt: thrifted. Boots: Duo via eBay

I seem to have had a few days of being reminded of some of the odder events that my school went in for.

First, the Halifax ad involving people ostensibly from a building society carefully removing all the happy from Walking On Sunshine reminded me of House Choir, and then a friend reminded me of Choral Speaking.

My school was founded in the early 1900s, and still operated a House system whereby events were taken part in according to your house rather than your form (There were six houses by the time I got there, each named after a famous female writer. I was in Rossetti house – the others were Austen, Bronte, Browning, Eliot, and Potter). Of course, sports day was the big one – but the school also placed  a lot of stock in music, public speaking etc.

And somehow, as well as people playing instruments, this involved the annual Learning Of Words that marked the alternation of House Choir and Choral Speaking.

Six groups of 45 rather bored teenage girls removing every bit of soul from one faster track, such as Heard It Through the Grapevine, and trying not to giggle through a slower track, like the dirge that is Edelweiss, should give you a fair idea of what House Choir involved.

Choral Speaking, on the other hand, did not involve music. Oh no. Choral Speaking was, basically, poetry recitation en masse. Great effort was put into rhythm and appropriate emphasis. Now, I enjoy good poetry. I have an English Literature degree, in fact! But it is not, IMO, a thing which lends itself well to group recitation – though funny poems are slightly less awful in such a situation than serious ones.

A friend of mine can still remember most of  Colonel Fazackerley Butterworth Toast, though.

And we still haven’t quite worked out why!

At a table near the back, underneath the fan, two men shared a joke about the normal folk.

 Top: Next via eBay. Cardi: Jane Norman via eBay. Skirt: Vintage. Shoes: Dorothy Perkins via eBay. Belt: thrifted. Brooch: www.mockinghorse.co.uk 

I promise I was looking slightly less blurred in real life than in this photo. Although given the amount of work I seem to have on at the moment a blur of speed would actually be quite useful!

I really wasn’t feeling this outfit this morning – one of those days when I knew the clothes worked perfectly well, they just weren’t suiting my mood, but there wasn’t time to change. I wanted to be in warm browns and purples instead of anything quite this stark and contrasting – which sounds weird, but, well, if it’s true that colours influence mood then perhaps I needed a hug today?

Still, I must have been doing something right. I got a blink and a ‘you’re looking nice today in red’ from an unexpected (and not entirely welcome – not that the comment was in the least bit offensive!) direction, at any rate.