Dog People, Beware

It's National Cat Day today, so I'm handing over to a very special guest poster:


I'm Oscar.

Her What Writes The Blog got a birthday present back in April 1996. It was an IOU for a ginger bundle of fluff. She had to wait till August for me though!


I was very small with great big ears and paws


Then I grew a bit



And now I'm a great big devilishly handsome chap



My hobbies are:

Finding places where I can spread maximum amounts of ginger fluff


Sitting on my Uncle Ken

(oh he's going to kill her for that)

Helping! I especially enjoy jigsaws, sewing and computer work.




Sleeping


Pretending I'm a jockey


Miaowing. I am an excellent conversationalist.


And generally being handsome. She regularly assures me I am The Most Handsome Cat In All The Land.


I think she's right, don't you?

Loud and Proud

I gave you a sneaky peek of today's frock a little while ago. Remember? The loud one? No, don't go getting distracted by how red my coat is. (Seriously though coat, are you this red in real life?)

This frock! The cherrytastic one.

I am still a tad bashful about wearing it because let's face it, subtle it is not. However I've run out of clean clothes and so I had no choice. This novel is completely taking over my life. I have no time for anything else at the moment (apart from waging war on Amazon's customer service department but that's a whole other long and boring story). I'm 41,600 words into the novel though so fingers crossed I'll complete the challenge! Then in November I can do some ironing and stuff and stop living like a tramp.

Dress - vintage
Shoes - Dorothy Perkins
Coat - H&M via ebay
Scarf - dunno

Coats

Today I am thinking coats. Also, having typed the word a lot, am thinking what a weird word it actually is. Coat. Coat. Coat. Coat. Coat. Hmmm.

Anyway, would you believe that I only used to have one? It was black, it was from Asda, it cost about £20. Not that any of those things are necessarily bad - it was a good coat, just not very interesting. This is it (back in the fatter days, obviously...):

I seem to have developed quite the collection over the past year. It's probably very modest by a lot of people's standards but considering that I used to be restricted to just the one, it feels like a lot to me!

There's the Monsoon one that I sort of regret buying because it was expensive and I've only worn it twice. So pretty though...

And the super bargainous H&M jacket (£10 in the sale) which I love to bits:


I hereby share with you my top tip for coat purchasing: stalk ebay in the summer. There might not be as many winter coats listed but because not many people are thinking that far ahead, there will be fewer bidders and you will get bargains. I'm far too tight to spend a fortune every year on a coat - the ASOS and Topshop ones might look lovely but the prices make my eyes water. Unless it's going to last years and - let's face it, they never do - I'm not going to spend a lot on it (Um, Monsoon coat shall be the exception. I was under shopping pressure that day).

This H&M coat was about a fiver off ebay and still had the tags in:


Another H&M coat that came off ebay. This is the closest thing to a mac you'll ever see me in; I don't like flasher type coats.



So that's the bases covered really. Red coat, green coat, lightweight coats, frivolous velvet coat, work fleece, sensible waterproof Regatta coat and a whole heap of jackets (should probably do a separate post on them at some point).

The only thing lacking was a smartish dark coat. I know I was in need of one but as you've probably realised by now, I get very bored shopping for sensible basics. So when the lovely people at Very got in touch, I went "Yoicks!" and chose this very pretty herringbone coat with velvet trim and buttons. Even better, it came in petite as well as normal so I didn't have the usual hassle of flappy long sleeves. Super cute, yes?

ps - a great big helloooooo to all the new followers who have appeared recently. Tell your friends! When I'm up to 400 I'll pull together some sort of marvellous giveaway.

pps - I have guest posted on Where Are My Knees? Read, enjoy, see me in my scanties...

Shiny, shiny, shiny

Today I am talking jewellery, and the storage thereof. To be more accurate, I am showing you pictures because there's not an awful lot you can say about it.

So, um, welcome to the world of my shiny things!

Yes, that is a pair of Kopparberg earrings hiding behind the triangles

Earrings dangle in three layers:




A handy Ikea stacking pot holds (L-R) stud earrings, rings and assorted broken stuff:


I found this thing at work, about to go in the bin. No idea why we had it there or what it actually is! Is it meant to be for jewellery display or half of a child sized mannequin? Anyway, it's very useful for pinning some of my brooches onto:



Some of the necklaces dangle from the other wooden holder:


Some of them live in a craft box thing in the cupboard:


And the bangles (not that I have many, because they tend to irritate me) live in a hat box which I forgot to take a photograph of because it was 1am when I took these pictures and the brain wasn't quite working properly by then.

I did remember to take this though, should you wish to purchase your own jewellery holders. I'm not associated with the man in any way and have never met him - my mum bought me the holders as presents from a craft fair - but they pass both elements of the William Morris test and that's always a big positive mark as far as I'm concerned.


ps - I think I was wildly over optimistic to say that I'd have any free time in October for blogging. I am barely managing to squeeze in a couple of posts a week and definitely have no time for commenting. It's only temporary though: I shall be back to normal in November. In the meantime, don't get bored with me please!

A Little Bit of Vintage Shopping

Oh vintage fairs, how I enjoy thee. I adore tracking down a bargain in a charity shop or a car boot sale but sometimes it's nice to be lazy and have lots of goodies all lined up for you to drool over.

The Affordable Vintage Fair finally came back to Liverpool - hurrah! Apparently Chloe Sevigny was there but I don't think I'd have recognised her even if she was wearing a big name badge and came and introduced herself so hey ho.

Do forgive the haul post that's coming up. I have no brainpower left for proper words.

I bought a big red suitcase to add to my stack of cases.

Also a lovely leather briefcase which will do me very nicely until I manage to rustle up the cash for an (extortionately priced) doctors or Gladstone bag.


A pure wool jacket all the way from Salzburg.

From the same stall, this cherrytastic dress. Gosh my mother can be scathing sometimes. I showed it to her and she summed it up in one simple sentence. "Well it's a bit loud." Yes, yes it is. Hence why I like it.


Char and I purchased this timeshare shirt. Whacky, isn't it? We chuffing love it though and we were running out of dosh by this point so we pooled our resources and bought it.

And what did I wear to said vintage fair? Well, nothing that was actually vintage, save for the handbag:



Dress - New Life
Cardi - Gap sale
Shoes - Irregular Choice via ebay


Not that these are in any way, shape or form vintage, but I took the photo so thought I may as well include it... some Primark tights and knee high socks that were also purchased this weekend following a quick shopping trip after cheering on my brother in the Liverpool marathon. He is amazing.

Face On

Double whammy here - not only am I wearing burgundy, a colour I haven't ever worn before that I can remember, but I'm also looking at the camera instead of my feet in at least half of the photos. Wonders will never cease.

I like these chinos an awful lot. Clearly the way forward with scary colours is to wear them on my lower half. Yes, I know I'm probably the only person in the world who think burgundy and purple and suchlike are "scary" but they really drain me out if I wear them next to my face so I've fallen into the habit of just avoiding them full stop.



I LOVE this bag. Love it.

Jumper & ring - Dorothy Perkins
Chinos & bag - Primark
Shoes - Irregular Choice
Bangle - vintage

Thanks for all the novel writing encouragement! It's progressing ok but is properly clobbering my free time, hence the less wordy blog posts - I just don't have time to be creative on here as well! I'm slightly behind schedule and had a bit of a panicky meltdown the other night when I just couldn't write anything but I reckon I'm back on track now. It's slightly surprising me how many things I'm having to check during the process of writing - they include:

Norwegian names
Ipads (because I am POOR and don't have one of my own)
Shamefully emotastic bands
Tattoos on men (oh that was such a hardship)
Houses

I love a bit of research though so it's all been quite good fun really. However if anyone speaks Norwegian, do please let me know...