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:

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.

Travel the world and the seven seas. Everybody’s looking for something

 Cardi: knitted by me. Dress: Fever via eBay. Belt: thrifted. Shoes: Dorothy Perkins via eBay. Necklace: Anna Lou via Accessories Online

Prepare the Hendrick’s! I’m not working again until the 10th! I’m not intending to vanish from here, though, and will try to muster up some actual words rather than mildly incoherent appreciation of the thought of G&T.

An old memory

 Top: Wallis. Skirt: Vintage. Belt: thrifted. Shoes: Dorothy Perkins via eBay. Brooch: www.mockinghorse.co.uk

Busy day at work today – I’m currently in that phase of having a new hire whereby it actually results in more rather than less work for me, so on top of going on holiday next week I’m rather tired. He’s fitting in well and picking things up fast, though, which is great news.

Now, though, I’ll find the energy for a bit of knitting when my pizza has turned up!

I’ll be in your arms, like a Moonlight fantasy

 Dress: Joe Browns. Belt: thrifted. Shoes: Clarks via eBay. Necklace: made by me

I currently have what seems to be called in business ‘a nice problem to have’. In other words, I’m now smaller than most of last year’s Autumn/Winter wardrobe. The only things that still fit are the stretchy things, the wrap dresses, and the things that were on the snug side when I bought them. So, lots of shopping ahead of me.

But before I did that, I wanted to go back to colour analysis. I ‘had my colours done’ a few years ago, but to be honest although it gave me a bit of a steer and a few ideas I’d not had before, I never really felt quite satisfied with the results. I was, for the record, pegged as ‘Soft and Warm’ within the Colour Me Beautiful system – it’s all about muted colours and low contrast, which is true to some degree but my sister and I both had a feeling that I could take stronger colours than the Soft and Warm palette would suggest.

So, a couple of weeks ago I went to this lady for a much more personalised experience. Jane really took her time to explain her thinking, and spent a good hour draping me with oodles of swatches of fabric in every colour you could think of, determining what looked great, ok, and awful on me. Once she’d gone through everything, she gave some thoughts on how to combine my ‘best’ colours and on make-up, and then sent my custom swatch book through the post a couple of days later. I’d definitely recommend her to folk local to Nottingham who are interested in having a bespoke colour analysis done – she really knows her stuff and was a pleasure to spend an afternoon with.

It’s amazing the difference it makes to see the colours a) on you in natural daylight and without any other distractions and b) in comparison with one another – it really helps illustrate what works and what doesn’t, and given how far my resulting custom palette differed from the standard selections it makes it pretty clear that trying to figure out which box you fit into is never going to work completely. I’d say there were a few surprises as well as a few things I’d expected and a few things which explained why I’m drawn to or avoid particular colours.

Muted is definitely the way forward for me. True brights – think zingy and almost neon – and true pastels are a really fast way to make me look like a zombie. I visibly winced when any of those shades were draped on me, put it that way! My dislike of pink was vindicated by every single shade bar a lone fuschia that made it into my wallet looking decidedly awful on me.

But I’m not entirely warm-toned – there were a few cooler shades which looked good on me that have made it into my wallet. And I can wear both gold and silver jewellery – it’s the brightness that’s key, so antique shades work where bright gold and bright silver don’t look so great. Mustard and salmon surprised me as looking great. Black actually looks ok on me – it just didn’t make it into the wallet because very dark brown is a better neutral base. There were quite a lot of medium light shades that looked ok-but-not-amazing on me so none of those made the cut. Whites – well, I wasn’t wrong that pure white looks terrible on me!

So what are my best colours? Well…

Pretty palette, isn’t it? There are fewer blues than I would have liked, but they’re the shades I do tend to wear anyway. And look at all those reds, greens and browns! Pleasingly, there are a few purples, too, though not all of them have photographed well – same goes for the teals at top right.

All in all, I’m really pleased with my palette – and with how many of my existing clothes fit within it. It’s given me some great ideas for colours I wouldn’t have thought of without seeing them on me (orange! mustard! fuschia!), and, well, I do have a whole new wardrobe to buy…

You, I thought I knew you. You, I cannot judge. You, I thought you knew me

 Shrug: New Look via eBay. Dress: New Look via eBay. Shoes: Dorothy Perkins via eBay. Belt: thrifted. Brooch: www.mockinghorse.co.uk  

It’s been a bit of a brain-sapping week so far, so I’m afraid I’m a bit lacking in words lately. Back to my usual outpourings soon, I’m sure!

In the meantime, both tape measure and a quick – but fruitless – dip into the shops on the way home confirm that I’m now back to the size I was ten years ago. What’s more pleasing, though, is that I’m much fitter – both than I was before I lost weight and than I was ten years ago. I’m developing increased tone  - I have, once or twice, prodded my arms or legs in confusion at the muscles that seem to be developing. They’re wandering into my torso, too, but, well, there’s more of a cover for ‘em there still! I’m not aiming for muscular or super-toned – I’ve never really wanted rippling abs and a totally flat tummy, which is handy as they seem unlikely to result without me putting in a huge degree of effort I’ve no wish to commit! It’s nice to feel my body responding and getting stronger as I move it about more, though, and I know my stamina and overall health has improved, which is what it was all about.

I’m also much happier with myself than I was this time ten years ago – I don’t think it’s possible to over-emphasise that. It’s a good feeling, feeling good about yourself.

And I’m celebrating it by ordering pizza, because who achieves happiness through self-denial?