Baggage

I was tagged by the truly fabulous Helga to reveal the contents of my bag so here goes! You should probably know that it's had a bit of a tidy up for the purposes of this post as it's usually crammed to bursting point with old receipts and general crap.

Firstly, the bag. My trusty Kookai leather bag - £60 about 8 years ago which was a LOT for me to spend. Still is really. I don't understand how people can pay hundreds of pounds for handbags - I was pushing it with this one, but it's proper leather and it's lovely and lasting so well.

And the contents:

An Edward Monkton notebook and my diary (with a wodge of printed maps for next week's trip tucked inside). I never go anywhere without a book or two so here's a typically varied choice - a historical biography and a Worst Witch book. Oh how I love children's books. A random cd (no idea what's on it but I have a feeling it's work related), a flash drive and a selection of pens.

The essentials - a brolly, my phone, hairbrush and bobbles, dry shampoo, keys, purse (John Rocha) and spare keys which I totally forgot to give to the person who's on Oscar feeding duty while I'm away. If you've got good eyesight, I'm the fat one on the right hand side of the photo keyring!

Random junk that's accumulated in one of the inside pockets - receipts, pearl headband/necklace, silver sixpence, a couple of rings, owl necklace, bobble and hair clips.

And my makeup bag. It does all fit inside that little bag, honest! I seem to be the go to girl at work when it comes to needing Nurofen so I'm always stocked up with that, plus Zovirax to ward off the dreaded coldsores. Oh and some Gaviscon, classy eh? I don't think I've got the energy to list all the various makeuppy bits unless there's a general clamour for it - let me know if you're interested! I cart it round with me all the time but the only thing that's an absolute essential is the moisturiser. Makeup gets put on when I can bothered and definitely not every day.

So that's my bag! If anyone else fancies a go, please do - I'd love to see what you carry round with you every day.

In which I find as many brick walls as possible to take my photos next to

It seems like ages since I've done an outfit post. I think I was at that stage in the laundry cycle where nothing is clean and ironed and I was barely fit to be seen out, let alone be photographing myself. But you will, I'm sure, be pleased to know that I spent practically all weekend ironing and the wardrobe is now stuffed to bursting point.

The perils of food allergies eh? I went out for a meal last night en famille to celebrate Father's Day and I appear to have inadvertently eaten something with milk in it. And because my body is deeply odd, I don't just have a really sore stomach and insanely low energy levels today, I am also all bloaty and have a fat face. Why milk makes my face fat is something I will never understand but trust me, it's annoying! Especially when I am trying to be deeply good and turned down all sorts of deliciously tempting treats, only to be scuppered by something that I thought was fine. Argh!

Dress - New Look

Cardi - Primark

Scarf - gift

Earrings - gift (I think they're from Accessorize though)

Sandals - Dorothy Perkins

In hindsight, perhaps a jersey dress was not the ideal thing to wear when trying to conceal my stomach. The wardrobe situation is odd this week though and I'll be in all sorts of peculiar/dull outfits because I'm packing all the nice stuff for two separate trips next week. Yes, I'm an OCD packer - I'm not going for days but things have to be sorted out far, far in advance of the actual date.

I think the time has well and truly come to get rid of the Birkenstocks. Just because something is green is no reason to keep it. They make stupid farty noises, they aren't comfy, they're quite ugly and I don't really know why I bought them in the first place. Silly things. Or perhaps just silly me for buying them when I never really liked them that much.

I hope you had the time of your life

I sometimes feel like a bit of a fraud when it comes to talking about music. The musical talent and interest runs down the male side of my family (my grandad played guitar in a big band, my dad has the most varied musical taste of anyone I know, my brother DJs a bit and runs a club night ) Me? Well I can mostly take it or leave it. I listen to the radio all the time but it's always Radio 5 or sometimes Radio 4, so I never have a clue what's going on in the charts unless a friend sends me some music. Doesn't seem like I'm missing that much to be honest!

But when I do find a band or artist I like, I really like them. They'll tend to be responsible for the albums or songs that come to really mean something in my life, music that instantly defines a certain time or place or emotion.

I don't want to sound all pretentious and be like "oh ya, American Idiot is a really seminal album for me" but there was a lot going on in my life in late 2004. I'd just finished uni, no real idea what to do with my life, parents were splitting up rather traumatically, my cat died, I was busy falling in love. Lots of memories, lots going on, and that album was seemingly always there in the background. I'd always loved Green Day anyway but it just holds a special place in my heart.

I was poor with a capital P when they were touring it though so had no chance of being able to go but snapped up tickets for the latest tour and last night was the night! I can't review it, I'm still not able to coherently talk about the glory that was nearly 3 solid hours worth of Green Day live. Time of my life? I'd say so.

Here's a very good review of it, if you're interested. If not, feast your eyes on beautiful Billie Joe and his guyliner. Swoon. Oh and Ffion and I, pulling funny faces (I blame the cider)

A Little Peek

Vix requested a close up of the piggy banks which show up in the background of some of my outfit pics and whilst I was photographing them I thought why not take a few more snaps. I'm not a particularly materialistic person; as long as I have books and cats and a cosy bed I'm quite happy. Having said that, I'm not a minimalist either. I like to surround myself with quite a lot of stuff. Here are some of the little things I love the most:

The piggy bank collection all started with a wonderful smiley face one. Alas it broke during the last house move and is no more, but owning that made people start buying me them. The big green pig was a gift from my dad, the camouflage one from my pal Lee, the name one and shoe one from my Mum. I bought myself the mushroom and Paddington boxes. The latter was from a tremendous shop in Liverpool called Utility which stocks all sorts of wonderful goodies. (The big gold A is from a salvage yard and apparently came from an old pub sign)

I often think I could quite happily live in a bookshop. I live surrounded by books as it is. There are shelves full of them everywhere, stacks at the bottom of the bed, piles dotted around the house. I've blogged about them here but the shelf in the above picture is my comfort shelf. I've read them all again and again (except The Great Roxhythe which is just dire) - you can probably tell by the state of some of them. Although I should point out most of the damage was done by previous careless owners and I'm a very good book owner and don't bend pages or break spines or suchlike.

Possibly the most beautiful shoes I own. These live tucked away in my wardrobe like the fragile and precious creatures they are, wrapped in tissue paper and sharing shelf space with my other IC heels. They don't mix with the common shoes.

Oscar, obviously.

And Toby Bear. Right, no mocking the 27 year old for still having a teddy bear, ok? He has a colourful history - many years he was the last bear in the shop and was rescued on Christmas Eve as he was lonely and dangling from a hook on the ceiling. (In deeply curious coincidence and all due to the randomness of the internet, I am now friends with the person who climbed up the ladder to unhook him, who then also turned out to be my next door neighbour when I was 1!) I like to imagine that he has a crazy life when I'm out at work.

(note - I do not promote ursine over-indulgence in banned substances - it's cornflour)

Ah, my beautiful hatboxes. A hat that would fit on my ginormous noggin would no way fit in them as they're not that big but I find them just the right size for stashing hair bands etc and bangles in. I've had them for years and they've suffered a bit from sun damage but the pattern is just as beautiful as ever. Makes me dream of being a grand Regency lady...

Summer Stylings

I've been having wardrobe issues recently. I estimate a good 50% of the stuff I own is either cardigans or jumpers and although the pretty frock collection is ever increasing, I don't want to spend the entire summer in dresses. So in the spirit of being organised, I made myself a little try-on list and headed off to the retail park yesterday morning to see what worked.

Things I concluded:

• Shorts do not suit me, in any cut, length or style.
• Pale coloured linen trousers make me look pregnant
• I am too short for cropped trousers to look good, unless they are sort of knee length and then they just look a bit too much like boy shorts for my liking.
• I am hovering between a 14 and a 16 on my lower half so there's not much point buying anything for a while anyway!
• I can't stop spending money. Really, I must get a grip. Some of the things I bought were exchanged for some shoes that had to go back but even so, I went out with the full intention not to buy anything and utterly failed.

I'm not going to show you pics of the stuff I did buy because I've realised just how many of those posts I've been doing recently and it shames me a little. Tut tut. I will show you two of the things though because I ended up wearing them later that evening in sort of vague homage to England. I don't do football shirts or obvious/tacky representations of my patriotism but a little red and white is good for the soul. While I'm on the subject, if you don't like footy, you don't like footy; you don't have to pretend just because it's the national team! Sorry but it irks me. And for the record I love football so will be mostly be found in front of a tv screen for the next 3 weeks.

T shirt - Gap
Skirt & pumps - Dorothy Perkins
Marauding cat - Oscar!

I think I'll be channeling this look quite a lot over the summer. I wonder about my brain sometimes - I was bemoaning my upper arms (I won't have them out on show, I just won't) and wondering about whether I'd be stuck in cardis all summer and then remembered that tshirts exist. Not quite sure how I'd managed to forget entirely about such an obvious piece of clothing, but there you go.

Also, I'm rather liking Gap. I genuinely don't think I've been in a Gap store for about 10 years - it's just not a place that enters my shopping radar - but I walked past it on the way to get the Saturday paper and popped in. Well, I was impressed. Lots of lovely stuff and super helpful staff. Admittedly some of the clothing is on the classic side of things (ie dull) and perhaps a little bit more expensive than I would usually go for but this tshirt is fab and wasn't pricey. Might go back and get it in blue once I get paid. You may notice that I've taken everyone's advice about horizontal stripes!

Double Trouble

Evening lovely readers *waves extravagantly at you all*

I seem to have quite a few new followers recently which is jolly nice. I went over the 50 mark without noticing it and I did have a giveaway planned. Maybe if/when I hit 75 instead?

I was having a computer free evening yesterday (I like to have one every now and then) so you get the dubious pleasure of two dodgy photos in one post today instead. I'm finding recently that looking ok on the camera display doesn't necessarily equate to looking ok on a laptop screen!

Dress, tshirt & leggings - Dorothy Perkins
Belt - Primark
Shoes - George
Locket - Etsy
Necklace - Tu
Ring - New Look


This had to do double duty as it needed to be smart enough for interviewing volunteers in the morning and practical enough for moving furniture round in the storerooms in the afternoon. It seemed to work ok for both and I like it, which is the main thing after all!

Today's outfit was a lot more casual and entirely flung together at the last minute as I was, yet again, running late. Not massively exciting but I quite like the clashing florals.

Top - Primark
Cardi - New Look
Jeans - Dorothy Perkins

I'm off now to try and pick an outfit that makes me look as slim as possible. I'm meeting a friend for coffee tomorrow and she lives miles away so I haven't seen her since she was home at Christmas. I'm considerably slimmer than I was then so I want to show off a bit!

Hmmmm

I am very drawn to stripes, even though I should probably know better. There's an oft quoted fashion rule about horizontal stripes making you look wider and let's face it, I don't need any help in that department. So although I had my eye on this beautiful cardi from the moment I saw it in the shops, I couldn't bring myself to buy it, despite much urging from various people on different shopping trips. I finally gave in though - well, it was on sale plus 20% off, what was I meant to do?

Strangely enough it's not actually the stripes on the cardi that I've questioned whilst looking at the photos. It's the length. My problem area is stomach/hips/upper thighs (vile jelly belly going on!) and as such I'm quite wary of things that stop at lengths that draw attention to this. I tried to add a bit of length by layering a longer vest top underneath but I'm still not entirely convinced. Any suggestions?

Jeans, vest top & cardi - Dorothy Perkins
Plimsolls - Primark