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.

We could be walking around a zoo with the sun shining down over me and you

 Top: New Look via eBay. Skirt: Wallis via eBay. Necklace: www.paulkidby.com. Shoes: thrifted. Holdups: Wolford

For someone who knows it isn’t her best colour (though it’s certainly not my worst) and has avoided black for the past few years, I seem to be having something of a week of it, don’t I?

I do try to do what Sal refers to as Intentional Black – I’m not a fan of the black-trousers-insert-coloured-shirt-here combination, in general, though there are a couple of darker shades I might do that with and for some reason I’m inclined to exempt red from that. But I’m not quite sure I entirely hit the mark all the time.

What d’you think? Are the hold-ups and shoes enough to lift this outfit out of the blah box?

One more time, we’re gonna celebrate

 Dress: Dorothy Perkins via eBay. Belt: M&S via eBay. Shoes: thrifted. Necklace: Monsoon

Hm. Way more colour than is normal for me yesterday followed by way more black than is usual for me today. Apparently I’m having something of a style wibble!

There was a bit of disturbance in Nottingham last night, but nothing too major and from what the police have said it seems to have been very much a case of the usual criminal suspects seizing the opportunity for a bit more of what they normally get up to.

Disappointing, but following Nottinghamshire Police on Twitter was incredibly reassuring and gave a real sense of a series of unfortunate incidents being dealt with calmly and effectively. I can’t praise their efforts highly enough, and I really appreciate having such a direct line to information.

I have, though, been a bit puzzled by some of the discussion surrounding the riots. We’ll gloss over the comments that have been advocating nothing less than eugenics (ugh!), and oddly prevalent opinion that water cannons are only slightly more highly powered than a hose and do nothing more damaging than give people a good soaking (If you’re strong-stomached and you don’t already have this particular mental image, google ‘water cannon eye’. It’s not pretty, but if folk are going to advocate the use of something they should at least be aware of that.), presumably so they’ll… feel too damp to loot?

What bewilders me is the number of people that seem to suggest that if you’re speculating about the possible factors contributing to the situation you are somehow condoning the violence and the looting. Huh? Similarly, there’s an awful lot of people out there that think the problem will be solved though the ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ approach. OK. Fine. What do we do with the next batch when we’ve run out of lockable places?

Back to forum observations:

Looking into possible causes doesn’t mean looking for excuses. It means seeing if there’s something you can change to help stop this happening again.

 I don’t know quite how we’re supposed to avoid this sort of thing happening again if we don’t figure out why it’s happening this time and deal with that. You can make a room look tidy by cramming everything into a cupboard, but it’s going to burst out at some point so you’re much better off actually tidying up and finding places for everything.

Unless your mum’s coming round unexpectedly.

Still here in this quiet room, deep in delusion sending me over

 Cardi: Gap. Top: Monsoon. Skirt: Beignet, made by me. Shoes: thrifted. Necklace:made by me

I have a second Beignet skirt cut out, in a slightly lighter and more fluid fabric than this (and a smaller size than this was originally cut in – I had to enlarge the seams and fudge a little on this version and I’ve shrunk a little more since then) that I really ought to put together.

Thing is, this is flawed and fudged and not made from the most sensible choice of fabrics, but… it’s the only non-wool pencil skirt I have that doesn’t gape wildly at the waist. And since making it, I’ve become incredibly picky about that because not only does the gaping waist look far less flattering it also feels less comfortable. Self-made and vintage it is, then, I guess!

I’m a one way motorway

 Cardi: Jane Norman via eBay. Top: H&M. Skirt: vintage. Shoes: thrifted. Brooch: www.mockinghorse.co.uk

I’ve been thinking a little today about habits. It all started this morning, when I tried on every red, white or blue belt that I own with this outfit before admitting that it actually looked better beltless. Apparently I have become belt-dependent in the past year. Similarly, here I am wearing blue yet again and combining it with red yet again. It works, and I like the resulting outfit, but I ought to use my next purchases to expand the warmish-weather wardrobe in not-blue directions, I think, before I start looking too much like I’m just chucking red accents onto my old school uniform!

These are incredibly minor habits in the scheme of things, I know, but what really pleased me was that I noticed (albeit eventually – you lot are probably sick of the sight of me in assorted shades of blue by now, and you haven’t even seen my latest vintage dress yet!) that I’d formed a couple of habits recently. Thing is, habits creep up on you. It’s easy enough to spot other people’s habits – he never reads his emails in full, she tends to respond to a request in this way, he becomes oddly efficient about weeks old tasks when his big project hits a wall, she’s always running late etc etc – but your own are a different matter entirely.

Most of them are pretty benign even if they do make the possessor sound a bit quirky –  I don’t suppose it really matters that I always group the work tea-run mugs into beverage type segmented by sugar requirement and desk placement relative to each other, the kettle and my desk, for instance.  At least not unless I find myself becoming convinced that Bad Things Will Happen if I don’t.

There are, though, times when it’s worth questioning why we do things the way we do. In today’s case it’s just a simple matter of ‘hang on a minute, might as well poke myself out of this rut – it’s not really necessary to adopt a nautical theme for the whole of summer’. But I’ve prodded myself out of unhealthy thinking habits over the course of this blog, too, and that’s been an incredibly rewarding and valuable exercise.

I know I can be nervous, probably more so than I need to be, of New Situations – taking the plunge can be difficult and so although this is something I’ve been working on in the past few years as well I have a little habit of avoiding things that I don’t actually want to avoid, deep down. I’ll continue to challenge that habit, see if I can form a new one in time.

It’s the same with work. I’ve been in places where ‘well, we’ve always done it this way’ and ‘well, we used to do x 10 years ago’ were regular refrains and while it’s important to use experience of the past to inform the present it’s also important to be open to what’s going on now,  to how things have evolved. The world has changed dramatically in the past ten years. Why would you continue to just do what you’ve always done when there are so many other things you could also do?

I’m not advocating change for the sake of change, but I do think it’s useful to audit your more significant habits now and then just to see whether there’s anything that could stand to be updated.

I’m not changing my mug configuration, though. It’s efficient, dammit!

I’m playing parts upon the silver screen. I’m anything my dream needs me to be.

Blouse: Miss Selfridge via eBay. Skirt: Beignet, made by me. Shoes: thrifted. Necklace: made by me

Gloriously laid back weekend, to say it involved hotfooting it to London for Derren Brown-watching purposes. The Svengali show was excellent (though personally I think Enigma just had the edge), but a) none of us made it up on stage and b) I’m not telling you anything about it other than that it was funny and fabulous. Spoilers, sweeties!

Saturday involved a leisurely, but rather soggy, wander around a few of the touristy bits of London before heading for home again, which gave us the opportunity to see an extraordinary number of people moving in not-long-off-the-coach sized groups sporting clearly-purchased-that-morning tourist-attraction-branded rain ponchos. Some of them over shorts that would have been completely appropriate in the previous day’s gloriously warm sunshine, the poor souls.

Welcome to England, people – I’m afraid you have to pack so that once here you can dress for sun, wind, rain, hot and cold! Possibly all on the same day. Layers, shades and brolly with you at all times is a good plan to follow. Now you know why we talk about the weather so much!

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch, who watches over you

 Cardi: Gap. Dress: Vintage. Shoes: thrifted. Brooch: www.mockinghorse.co.uk 

Hello again, people! As I tweeted earlier, I’m feeling a little bit Alice today – blue full-skirted dress, fabulous red teapot brooch, and a general sense of bewilderment brought on by that first day of work after a week off feeling. I have consumed an awful lot of that magical potion, tea, today!

I had a wonderful week off, though. We stayed for a few days in Seahouses, Northumberland and saw these:

And these:

Puffin breeding season! Also, Tern breeding season. Terns are sufficiently territorial that we were advised to wear hats, and having had one particularly belligerent one apparently attempt to trepan me with its beak, I’m quite glad that I sported this stylish outfit for our wander on Inner Farne:

Yes, that white blur is a Tern aiming for my bonce. The babies were cute, though, and the parents weren’t *always* airborne and heading purposefully towards our heads:

It’s a beautiful part of the country – quite un-touristy, and involving sandy beaches as well as rocky islands with bird breeding colonies on them, so a really nice place to spend a few days getting away from it all if you’re a nature sort of person. Also umpty castles, if you’re a castle-exploring sort (I must admit, I have limited tolerance for this – I enjoy the feeling of them and the beauty, but I can’t spend hours wandering around them).

I have to give a shout out to the B&B we stayed in, too – St Cuthbert’s House is a beautifully converted chapel with the most welcoming and helpful hosts, immaculate rooms and delicious breakfasts I think I’ve ever come across in our B&B travels. Wonderful, and highly recommended if you’re planning holiday in the area.

Now, what is it I do for a living again…?

Another promise, another scene

 Blouse: New Look via eBay. Skirt: Beignet, made by me. Shoes: thrifted. Necklace: made by me.

Day Three of Dress Your Best week, and I must admit that I’m finding it quite a challenge. It’s not that there’s nothing about myself that I like, it’s that I’m completely unused to, well, saying so. It’s perfectly acceptable to dislike bits of yourself, and it’s fairly acceptable to ‘quite like’ at least a few bits. But actual appreciaton? That’s coming a little harder for me. It’s terribly alien. But, I deserve a little lovin’, so ladies and gentlemen, today, I praise my pins!

I have shorter skirts in my wardrobe. I’ve even worn one or two for work. But this high-waisted number works brilliantly with a sheer blouse to create a monochrome background for The Red Patent Heels. And actually, it’s not high-waisted on me – my waist is where the belt is. Yes, I am short waisted.

My daily yoga practice teaches me that my hamstrings are a little tight (one day, I’ll keep my feet flat in Downward-facing Dog. One day.). There’s a stretch mark or two on my thighs. There are old scars there somewhere. They end in feet with spindly toes, second toe longer than the big toe, instead of dainty digits. They’re a shade or two lighter than my arms, this time of year. My knees are a little on the knobbly side, and since I inherited ‘em from my father I sincerely hope I do enough exercise to make the prospect of knee replacement surgery recede at least a little further away than my 70s.

But they are long, they are toned, they are shapely, they are strong, and they are flexible. I could fold them under me in yoga poses before I even started doing yoga (The first I’d ever thought about it was when a friend wandered into my room at university and exclaimed ‘oh, you do yoga too?’ when she saw me lying on my back and reading a book with my legs bent under me at the knee. I didn’t. Mind you, I was 18 and not 33 then!). I used to be a fairly decent runner – although I confess I’ve never actually enjoyed running.

These pins have carried me through life with a fair degree of efficiency so far, and now that I’ve established more of an exercise routine than I’ve ever had before they’re supporting me through that, helping me to increase gradually the strength of my upper body (It needs it – but those Downward-Facing Dogs in which I can’t get my feet flat? They help. And I don’t find chatarunga impossible any more.) and feel fitter, healthier and happier than I have in years.

And Red Patent Heels always help