Revamping

There have been tons of really inspiring money-saving blog posts appearing recently. Three of my very favourite bloggers, Vix, Christina and Kate, have all written really thought provoking things in the past few days about cutting back and spending their cash wisely. I like to think I'm reasonably sensible with my money - I have no debts and I've got savings - but I don't think I've got anything particularly ground-breaking to add to the discussion as I don't really do anything special. I'm half Scottish and I was brought up in Yorkshire - I was just bred to be tight with money! However I'm pretty sure I've saved myself a few pounds over the past couple of nights, so I thought I'd blog about it.

I fell over my alterations pile whilst getting into bed at the weekend. The pile was so big that I even dreamed that it had come to life and eaten my rack of Irregular Choice shoes. I'm not sure if that was more of a nightmare than the one last night where Wayne Rooney wanted to have an affair with me. I was running shrieking through my subconscious going "But he's an UGLY gobshite! And he played for my most hated two football teams. Nooooooooooooooooooo!"

Ahem. Anyway, after cursing mildly I was actually really pleased that the pile was now strewn all over the floor as there was all sorts of fun stuff in there! You know when you buy something off ebay for about 99p in the hope that it will fit and look good, but it just doesn't? Well there were several of those mistakes in there, along with a few vintage things, some stuff that was too big and various random charity shop purchases.

I could procrastinate no longer.

Armed with my trusty mini sewing machine, some coffee, and a good book to read when I got stressed out, I went to work.

What do you know? I now have 4 new tops, a coat I can actually wear out in public and I've nearly made an unflattering skirt absolutely awesome. I say nearly, because I had a hemming disaster tonight and had to leave it alone before I burst into tears. I'm sure it's fixable but I can't face it tonight. Hemming is so boring, even when it's going well.

(ignore my utter grockishness in these pics please - I'm knackered, have no makeup on and the light is terrible in my room)

Exhibit 1:

This was a shirt dress that I bought in Cow Vintage in Birmingham for about £3 as it had a huge rip in the side seam. Well as it's a USA size 4 I was never going to squeeze my derriere into it anyway, so I've cut the bottom part off and made it into a normal shirt. Also took out some whopping 80's shoulder pads.

Exhibit 2:

This was a size 18 dress originally. There is an outfit photo of it way back at the beginning of the blog but my god, it's not flattering, so I'm not reposting it here. I had to hack it at a frilly bit so it's a wee bit shorter than I'd like (awful, awful stomach) but I reckon it's alright.

Exhibit 3:


A £1 Primark top. There was always a massive amount of fabric in this anyway, but I was starting to get a bit drowned by it. Side seams promptly taken in and it's much more wearable. Not exactly exciting or even necessarily blog-worthy, but a useful addition to the wardrobe nonetheless.

Exhibit 4:

Another size 18 dress. I think I got this for about 10p at a car boot sale, mainly cos the fabric was pretty. I finally got round to turning it into a top and taking in the side seams so it fits.


Exhibit 5:

This one was quite easy really as I just sewed some buttons on it. Naughty H&M - this was in the sale and had 4 out of the 5 buttons missing. I mentioned it to the guy at the till and had to really push for a further discount. I'm sorry, I don't care if it's in the sale or not. If it's got bits missing I'm not paying the marked price for it.

It's cute though isn't it?

I might have been bemoaning my lack of tops last week but the solution was so obvious. I'd only have shoved all these things in the charity shop pile but I'm chuffed I've managed to make them wearable and improve my sewing skills. They're not exactly immaculately sewn or anything but they're wearable, and it's stopped me from going out and buying a load of new things. Now if only I could get my brain around making things from patterns, I'd never need to shop again.

Oh Crumbs

I need some help/advice/encouragement please!

I've won a competition. Yay! I should be full of excitement and glee. Instead I'm bricking it. The prize happens to be a photoshoot with For Your Eyes Only in Manchester. Free makeup, free photoshoot, free photographic print of my best shot. Exciting, yes? Well it might be if I actually liked having my photo taken. I know it sounds odd for someone who posts outfit photos regularly to say that, but I am not photogenic and I have always been very bashful in front of the camera - I only manage it now by using the self timer and staring fixedly at the floor. Put me in front of someone's camera and I do not know what to do with myself.

Oh and did I mention it's a boudoir style photoshoot? All in very good taste - the pics on their website are gorgeous! - but it means being in my underwear or something sort of revealing and that's really not my comfort zone. I won't go into all my body hangups here because it's a long, boring and somewhat self-pitying list, but suffice to say that losing a lot of weight does not somehow magically give you a good body. I am happy with my overall shape now when I've got clothes on but underneath all those layers it's not a pretty sight.

And I'm not the matching underwear sort of girl anyway. I'll have to go and buy something nice that covers all the lumps and bumps and stretch marks and general mingingness. The stress of it all.

So my gut feeling is to go ARGH and not do it because it's scary, but I'm wondering if this is one of those times when my gut is being a pathetic wimp and I should (wo)man up and just get it booked. I've always wanted to be the sort of person who can prance around in their scanties and look and feel sexy. Perhaps they can airbrush me sufficiently so that this is achieved. There's a part of me that does think that after putting so much hard work into the diet, it'd be nice to have some sort of proper proof that I'm not a bloater anymore.

Might have to have a stiff drink on the way there though...

A Letter

Dear H&M

Much as I love you (and I really do, you are my High St shop of choice at the moment), you are very frustrating at the moment.

I need tops. I only have three that aren't t-shirts or vest tops and that's just not enough, especially in this warm weather.

You sell tops. This works for me. Well no, it doesn't, because you don't sell very many nice tops, do you? I waded through rails and rails of clothes in store on Saturday in a vain hunt and had to discard a good 90% of them because they were bizarrely cut or sized or just plain horrible.

Now I don't expect everything in a shop to be magically flattering and to my taste (although I sometimes dream of this happening), but once I've ruled out the following, there really wasn't much choice left.

- Anything cropped. I am not tall enough or skinny enough or young enough to get away with cropped tops.
- Anything boxy. Don't need any help looking square!
- Anything see-through. No, no, no.
- Anything bizarrely oversized. Is it the in thing this summer to wear stuff that swamps you? Must have missed that memo.
- Anything that is all of the above - cropped, boxy, oversized sheer shirt, I'm looking at you. I tried on a size 8 for comedy value and it was still too big!

Your weird sizing doesn't half make life confusing. Remember when I bought this outfit for my holiday and the shorts were a size 16 and the top was a size Small? It's a good job my spirits aren't crushed by looking at size labels anymore or I would have collapsed in a weeping heap on the changing room floor. I know I'm pear shaped but I'm not that pear shaped. Instead I was most stoic and told my bum that it wasn't really a size 16 any more and not to pay attention to the silly label.

A little consistency would be really nice so please sort things out. I will give you more of my money. I may even start buying things from your website because god knows I wouldn't trust anything to fit at the moment.

Fair deal, yes?

love

Alex

Despite all this beefing on my part, I did buy a top and I utterly love it. It was on a rail by the till and I was so bored of trying on unflattering things that I just grabbed it. It looked about the right size and I couldn't face going back to the changing rooms again. I can only assume it's one of those bizarrely oversized things I mentioned earlier because I bought a size 10 and it's not exactly snug on me. I should probably point out that I am not a size 10. I don't think the basic size of my ribcage will ever allow me to be anything smaller than a 12. So it shouldn't fit me, but it sort of does.

I wore it on Sunday and it felt nice and casual for the daytime:

Doing jazz hands at a marauding Oscar cat.

Shirt - H&M
Jeans - Dorothy Perkins
Belt - Primark
Espadrilles - Office

Then I swapped the shoes, added some jewellery, tied my hair up and it was just about right for a meal out in the evening. I do thoroughly approve of any piece of clothing that earns its keep. I don't have the physical space in my wardrobe for things I only wear once in a blue moon.

Shirt - H&M
Jeans - Dorothy Perkins
Belt - Primark
Heels - Next
Necklace - George sale


I think it's worth persevering with them. I really do like this shirt.

April Scavenger Hunt

It's time for the monthly Scavenger Hunt round-up post. I found it much easier to find subjects this month; I think probably because I was on holiday for the first week and had plenty of interesting locations to take photos in. Sadly I can't promise the quality of the photos is as interesting as the subjects are but I shall try harder in May. The categories were:

A sculpture:

In the world famous White Garden at Sissinghurst

Breakfast:

Birthday breakfast! Yum.

A church:

The church is St Mary-in-Castro, in the grounds of Dover Castle. It doesn't look like much but it dates from the year 1000 and the ruined tower thing next to it is actually a Roman lighthouse built in the 1st century AD.

A set of keys:

Not a set exactly...it's the biggest and smallest keys I could find in the key cabinets at work. I had hundreds to choose from!

Something to do with Shakespeare:

From Bill Bryson's fascinating book Mother Tongue.

An interesting shop name:

Sadly it's closed now, but candidate for best shop name ever? I think so.

Something yellow:

Newly painted yellow nails in new yellow shoes under a yellowy-green leaf.

April Showers:

Everyone seems to have found this difficult - it's been such a dry month! I felt some spit-spots of rain coming down on my specs one day and promptly snapped this.

Eggs:

Bit boring I'm afraid. No Easter eggs in this house, so normal eggs it had to be.

Something to mark St. George's Day:

St George's Day happens to be my chum Lee's birthday. So here he is, being eaten by a dragon.

Your camera:

It's such a poser. On a ruined heap of masonry at Bodiam Castle.

A cross:

A simple cross in memory of a very brave young man. It's in the New Chapel at Ightham Mote and marked the grave of Captain Thomas Riversdale Colyer-Fergusson. He won the Victoria Cross on the first day of the battle of Passchendaele after leading a force of only 6 soldiers to capture a German trench and two machine-guns. He was killed by a sniper shortly afterwards, aged only 21.

A Very English Affair

Good afternoon you lovely lot.

Whether you watched the Royal Wedding, ignored it and just said thank you for the extra Bank Holiday, or were a poor schmuck who was stuck in work, I hope you had a jolly nice day.

I'm firmly in the first camp. Nailing my colours firmly to the mast here: I am a staunch Royalist. I love tradition. I love pomp and ceremony, history and duty. I love frocks and hats. I love happiness. So what's not to love about a Royal Wedding? But if that's not your cup of tea then fair enough. Isn't this part of being a civilised and hopefully intelligent grown-up? You shouldn't feel the need to try and mock other people's thoughts and opinions in order to affirm your own sense of superiority and to be perfectly honest, I am more than a little fed up of the way some people have been reacting this week when they asked me if I was excited about the wedding and I replied yes.

Bah, mini moan over. I shall leave the fashion commentary to others but I must just say that I loved her dress. So elegant and so beautiful. I'm very pleased she went for sleeves too.

So what went on the Odd Socks household? We put on pretty frocks of course, quaffed Kir Royales during the ceremony and then had a mini tea party. I spent last night preparing for it like some kind of demented (and less boobalicious) Nigella. Apron on, hair up and I was ready to bake the night away.

This morning I started off with a very English breakfast of crumpets, plus lots of coffee. I thought the mug (my favourite) was kinda appropriate.

The tea party later in the day consisted of:


Tea, obviously. Pfft, who needs a matching tea set?

Well, we had to have some sort of nod to healthy/savoury stuff, even if my preference runs entirely to the sweet stuff. Chip sticks, homemade pizza slices, beef & tomato, cucumber and ham & tomato sandwiches, grated carrot and sultana, mixed baby salad leaves and some watercress. I even made my own bread!

Apple and blackberry crumbles, mini Party Rings, treacle tarts, fruit scones (damn you gluten-free flour, why do you make stupidly flat scones?!) and Victoria sponges. I feel like a veritable domestic goddess. The only thing I didn't make is the Party Rings. Even the raspberry jam in the Victoria sponges is my own work.

Full of alcohol, tea and cake, I then took myself out to the back garden to bask in the sunshine for an hour or two. What a lovely day it's been.

Let's Talk Books

I'm pleased to report that the March book buying ban went very well. I did read a lot of books over the past month or so, especially when I was on holiday, yet somehow the to-read pile hasn't gone down at all. If anything, it's bigger!

Before

After

I'm blaming this slightly on the fact that I'm suffering from a common complaint. Despite having all those books next to my bed, I can often be found wailing "I've got nothing to reeeeeaaaaadddd!" The local library comes in handy when this mood strikes me but bless them, they don't have the greatest selection in the world. Or perhaps I'm losing my ability to pick out the good ones?

The last armload I took out was a truly mixed lot. It contained Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger and William Walker's First Year of Marriage by Matt Rudd and they are two of the worst books I've ever read. What was Audrey Nifenegger thinking with this one? I won't even bother reviewing it because it will make me want to set the book on fire. Just look at some of the things people have written on Amazon and ignore the 5 star reviews because they were clearly written by lunatics. The plot is frankly ridiculous. I can't believe it got through the whole editing and publishing process without someone pointing out that it made No Sense. As for the other one, well I honestly don't know how he ever got a book deal. I'm sure he's a competent enough writer (it is his day job after all) but the characterisation is horrendous and the viewpoint of the title character was really quite nauseating. I felt thoroughly depressed after it and it was meant to be funny. Doom.

However, in the same batch were The Importance Of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith (oh Bertie, what a joy you are), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Six Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce, all of which were really rather good. The latter in particular is absolutely wonderful. It's not on general release yet - this copy was available as part of World Book Week as the author is from Liverpool and does lots of work with local libraries. His books often bring a little tear to my eye but they also really make me chortle.

Also worthy of a mention was a recent holiday read, Nemesis by Lindsey Davis. It's the latest (20th) in a series of detective novels set in Ancient Rome and the surrounding Empire, so I wouldn't recommend you start with this one if you haven't read any of them before. Grab yourself a copy of The Silver Pigs and start there. Oh they're brilliant - she creates such a sense of time and place and they're so interesting and funny. Not to mention the food descriptions - yum! Don't be put off by the historical setting either. I always think that they've got a very modern air to them and they're not difficult reads.

If you do follow my recommendation then I envy you, I really do. I would love to discover Falco again for the first time - he's one of my very favourite literary characters. This book is quite noticeably darker than some of the other recent books from the series but that's not a bad thing.

The to-read pile won't be going down any time soon either. My recent birthday has meant that I now have another 24 books to add to it:

I've been watching lots of sci-fi films recently so am muchly looking forward to reading the Philip K. Dick stories. And I don't think I've ever mentioned it on here but I do love wrestling, so the Chris Jericho book is bound to be v. entertaining.

You can always count on Lee to buy brilliant presents. Aren't these two sets lovely? I really like the clashing covers on the Penguin set but the cover designs on the Harper ones are just beautiful.

These are going to be so useful. The sewing book is amazing; absolutely packed with hints and tutorials.

I think I should probably just give up on further efforts to reduce the pile and embrace the fact that my bedside table is entirely made up of books. Does anyone have any recommendations for me?

It's A Good Friday

Yes, I am in work today and I will be on Monday too, so you wouldn't expect me to be all jolly and happy with life. But I am! It was my choice to work- I'd rather take the time in lieu and have the extra couple of days holiday when it suits me later in the year. I have a fun weekend planned, full of meals out, birthday drinks with pals and a whole day spent lounging on the sofa watching one of my favourite sporting days of the whole year, the cross country from Badminton Horse Trials.

Adding to the general air of happiness are many things. I'm sporting a new frock:

Dress - Be Beau @ Matalan

Cardi - Matalan (at least 10 years old - ah they don't make them like that anymore)

Shoes - Dolcis, also about 10 years old

Lippy - Collection 2000 in, appropriately enough, Cherry Red

Work is looking really quite splendidly beautiful today. The sun is beaming down, the birds are all singing in fine fashion and it's just utterly lovely:

Coffee and an apple & cinnamon hot cross bun is always a good start to the day:

And I woke up this morning to find this next to me. How unbearably cute please?!

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter.