A Jolly Good Time with Joules

I spent part of last week at Blenheim Palace. Tis rather large and rather wondrous.




The library was busy being set up for a wedding reception when we went around. Oh my word. Can you even imagine how much that must cost? I shudder to think.




Guys, it's a cake palace. It's made of CAKE. Who wants to help me eat it?

In short: the palace was most excellent. We weren't there just to look around impressive buildings though. During that week in September a whole other little city sets up camp in the grounds. A horsey city! We were volunteering at Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials which has got to have one of the loveliest sporting backdrops possible.



Aside from the three phases of the main competition (dressage, cross-country and showjumping) there are tons of tradestands, a food hall, an attractions arena with loads of brill demos and displays, doggie agility, a funfair and all sorts of fun and games to take part in. My shopping mostly consisted of horsey related things and I can't in all honesty expect you to get excited about the martingale I bought (the blingy green browband perhaps - it's like Crown and Glory but for ponies!).

Gin and tonic sorbet though...



Also, Joules. We all love it, don't we?



Hello there, tempting tradestand. It's Joules' Jubilee this year, marking 25 years of deliciously colourful country clothing. As far as I'm concerned, they're are a match made in heaven for horse trials shopping. While I daren't even look at tradestands like Dubarry (eye-wateringly expensive), I know that there will always be tons of things to take my fancy on the Joules stand. I utterly lost my heart to their amazing new fox jumper.



Knowing that I was off for a weekend of horses and gallivanting around in tents and fields, they had very kindly asked me if I'd like to try out anything from the Equestrian Collection. I couldn't resist the mega comfy Hartland gilet and super stripy Cowdray sweatshirt (mine is the salt wash colourway but it doesn't seem to be available online any more).

I'm delighted with them both. There's the additional side benefit of the tongue twisting amusement of trying to say Joules gilet but even without that it'd be pretty much perfect in my book. I don't like my gilets too shiny or too padded (don't need to look any bulkier than I am!) and this one is soft, cosy and absolutely ideal for those autumnal days when the weather can't quite decide how warm it wants to be.

The sweatshirt is equally perfect for an evening sitting outside the tent reading and then cooking dinner.



Also loving the turn back cuffs. Ideal for those of us with short arms!



So what was for dinner? Corned beef mash, campsite style. I adore that little gas stove.



We had a smashing time. I can't think of many better ways to spend four days than camping somewhere beautiful and enjoying the very best in country shopping and sporting entertainment. Just to end up with a little bit of horsiness, here's my favourite picture from the weekend:



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Vintage Shopping in Liverpool...The Vintage Corner

Hands up if you like a good vintage shop.

Yup, thought so! Me too, although I'm sure that won't come as a surprise to anyone.

Liverpool isn't brilliantly off for them, to be honest. Raiders closed down a while ago and although there are a few decent little shops, I have to do most of my rummaging in charity shops and at the odd vintage fair. We've got quite a few of the latter, it's just finding time to actually attend them that's the problem for me at the moment!



I paid a visit to Waterloo last weekend to see my dad, watch all of the X Men films and take in the delights of St John's Road. There are some fab shops starting up down there and after buying a lot of delicious cake at the newly(ish) opened Caz's Kitchen, we went for a wander around The Vintage Corner. Also new, also amazing!

Cheryl and Alison own and run the shop and they're girls after my own heart. They were both having great fun unpacking and trying on a new batch of stock when I was there - instant coat envy as an Aquascutum cape appeared out of the bag!



Oh so many pretty things in stock.





Also props to me for inadvertently paying my first visit when they were having a sale.  My timing is never usually that good!  I had a whale of a time trying on all the things that took my fancy.











Alas that gorgeous swirly green patterned frock was far too small for me otherwise it'd so be in my wardrobe right now. I bought other things though. Obviously.

Want a sneaky peek of my purchases? It turns out I really can't resist a good sale rail and came away with two tops and two frocks which I'm sure will feature in upcoming outfit posts very soon.



Oh and this beauty, although it won't technically be mine till Christmas as Dad has bought it for me as a present.

The Great Skirt Conundrum

My crappy attempts at dressmaking have recently seen me move into tops. Should be easier than making a proper dress, right? Wrong. The current work-in-progress has been on the go for about three weeks and is causing me no end of grief. Getting it finished may well be the death of me and even when it is done, I then have the problem of what to wear it with.

The current wardrobe situation is as follows:

• I own one pair of respectable jeans and one pair of dungarees. That's it in the trousers department.
• I have quite a lot of shorts but haven't been wearing them recently as I don't feel that comfy in them any more.
• Skirts? I have a few but really not that many. The time is definitely here for the collection to be expanded.

My constant problem is my dratted stomach. I am very conscious of it. Even at my slimmest it was still an issue. It won't go away, so I have to do my best to hide it. This is why skirts are so awkward - they seem to cling in all the wrong places.  Mind you, trousers do similar, which is probably why I hardly have any of them either.  There's more choice with skirt styles though so I live in hope that I'll discover the magic one that really suits me.

I've been mooching on the George site this week, particularly their skirts section, and there are some really pretty things tempting me.

Should you even be attempting to wear pencil skirts when you have an awful stomach? I'm inclined to think not: I certainly haven't found one that makes me looks non-hideous. Doesn't stop me wanting the heck out of this floral beauty though!




Speaking of fab florals, HELLO! This is only five quid in the sale. I might be able to make it work on me.




I'm more likely to end up with something like this though, although more likely in black than pink.  The few skirts I do have (and like) tend to be more on the A-line side of things.




Or perhaps I play it safe and stick with the trusty skater skirt... I've seen this one in store and it's plain but really rather cute.

So then, skirt gurus of the blogging world. Am I missing something obvious in terms of styles that might suit me? Can I ever wear that pencil skirt?

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Buying Better

I’d describe myself as quite money-savvy. I don’t like to waste my cash - I work hard for it and my purchases have to work hard for me or I end up begrudging them. My credit card is there for emergencies and those occasions where Section 75 protection is useful and I pay it off in full asap. My savings accounts (yes, plural) are in a healthy state and I put money aside every month for car stuff, presents and holidays as well as in my general savings. I’ve finally got round to joining the pension scheme at work too. Gulp.

I’m definitely getting old, aren’t I? I’ve even gone off Primark. Not that I was ever a massive splurger in there anyway but uck, I’m so sick of wasting money on shoddy clothing that is overpriced in the first place and then looks tatty after two washes. Overall I don’t shop as much as I used to and I’m quite happy with that. As you can tell from recent outfit posts, everything is getting reworn a lot more. New stuff is thin on the ground.

Being savvy doesn’t mean being stingy though. Everyone has dream items and I’m firmly of the opinion that if you can afford them and you definitely want and will use them, you should go ahead and buy them. I have always wanted Dubarry boots and a really posh tweed coat but life is what it is. I can’t afford to spend £299 on a pair of boots or £400+ for a coat and although I could eventually save up that much, my thrifty soul shudders at the thought of doing that just to buy clothes. Plus, as it turns out, neither of these much swooned over items actually look that good on me. Such are the blessings of being short and sturdy!



With a bit of compromise, a bit of knowing the right people and a bit of good fortune, I’ve ended up with both boots and coat. Not the dream versions but better than that. It just took patience.

You can read the tale of how I got my lovely, lovely tweedy coat here.

As for the boots, one of the perks of being a Blenheim volunteer last year was a very substantial discount on selected Ariat products. I nearly fell off the sofa in sheer delight when I found out. My Ariat Trent boots (which I paid full price for) are great and well worth their price tag, especially in terms of fitting the aforementioned sturdy calves, and they’re still going strong after more than a year of regular wear. But the Ariat Windermere boots (pictured above) that I bought myself are very like the lovely Dubarry ones and they come in wide fit and they were pretty much half price courtesy of the special offer.

Hurrah for patience and money-saving!

TK Maxx: Aintree

There's a lot of store redevelopment going on in Liverpool at the moment. Liverpool One sprung up a few years ago now, chock full of all sorts of shops and restaurants, and the rest of the city centre is gradually being revamped too. We've got a Forever 21 now! Matalan have just opened a flagship city centre store and the TK Maxx on Bold Street, which I blogged about here, is huge and ace! They're spreading the love into the suburbs too and have just opened a shiny new store in Aintree, so off I popped last weekend to pay it a visit.

We all know what a bargain you can pick up there, especially when it comes to clothing and shoes. I tried on a beautiful designer coat (the eagle eyed may be able to spot it in the middle of the above photo) which was £210 down to £49.99. My inner bargain hunter shed a little tear at leaving it behind but I do not need any more coats. I just don't. Stop it, Alex.

If I had one slight complaint it would be that the selection of frocks wasn't fantastic, other than sparkly party frocks, but I suppose it's that time of year, isn't it? The gorgeous array of knitwear more than made up for it. Had this specs jumper not been quite so high necked it would have been coming straight home with me.

I don't want this to be a tale of what didn't come home with me but argh, how I would have liked these ruby red slippers! Such are the misfortunes of having a popular foot size. There were some truly beautiful knee high boots too but alas not in a wide calf option (such are the misfortunes of having fat legs too!)

The homeware aisles are totally my happy place. I don't know why people automatically head to Ikea when they've got a house to fill. There is so much lovely stuff (esp. kitchenware) at TK Maxx. Shiny copper pans and gorgeous stoneware and more spatulas than you can shake a stick at.

This set of hat boxes would have been perfect for Maria. I'm weird though and can't buy things with initials on them if they aren't an "A".

Forget #wardrobezoo, I now want a housezoo!

So what did I actually buy? Presents for people, some coffee, knee high cosy socks and a hat!

I'd given up hope of ever finding a cloche type hat that suited me but I found one! I may have made indiscreet whooping noises in the middle of the shop. So happy!


*TK Maxx invited me along to visit the store and very kindly supplied me with a gift card to make a purchase or two. All opinions are my own. What can I say? I like it there!*

Shopping & Bopping

I love Liverpool.  Mock it at your peril cos I will get ferocious to defend it.  There's one thing about it that can't be denied though: it's a long old way from London.  We Northern bloggers can feel a long way removed from most of the social whirl that surrounds this odd hobby of ours.

Even if I was on those PR lists that mean automatic invitations to all the cool events (I'm not), it would have to be something pretty amazing to make it worth spending 4 hours on a train and taking time off work.   I don't have a chip on my shoulder about it or anything - it makes perfect sense for things to take place in the capital.  It'd just be nice if there was the odd bit of recognition that not everyone lives there.

Events that take place in Liverpool are much rarer but when they do happen, I say "yoicks" and do my very best to get to them.  So last Thursday saw me meeting up with Liverpool lovelies Laura and Frances to have a shop and a bop at TK Maxx.

The Silent Disco featured some ace music but I don't really do dancing, so I limited myself to a little bit of jaunty shuffling around the aisles instead. Mostly in my natural habitat, the shoe department.



This fella had no such inhibitions!





The mojitos were fab and the shiny gift card we got given upon leaving was even better!

There's another TK Maxx store close(ish) to my house so I had a little end-of-the-week shopping trip there with my mum. Well, she had a whale of a time buying herself a handbag and loads of stuff for her summer holiday and even a potential outfit for my brother's wedding (organised! It's not till October!). I resisted the lure of all the impractical Dune and Nine West high heels and spent my giftcard wisely instead:




What do you mean, I only buy green things? That is clearly not true. I also bought something black but it's a Top Secret Birthday Present so you'll have to trust me on that.